


Playing With Fire

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [20]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 90,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some stories are self-contained. This one is all aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which We Are Not Talking

We're still not talking to each other when we reach the party. 

The sidewalk in front of the steps is iced over, with a thin layer of snow on top to make it worse, and even Zhune's placing his feet carefully, hand on the railing, on the way up to the door. His new vessel looks sleek and stylish in that snow-dusted overcoat, like he's about to walk into a stranger's life from a story of Shanghai noir. Like a Balseraph who doesn't mind a brawl. (Regan would never have worn a vessel like that, but I know a few other Liars who would.) And when the door opens into light and music and laughter, he smiles like the woman there is exactly who he was looking for, and ought to be honored that he came to see her.

"Zhune," she says, and she does sound delighted. Impudites often do, and it's best not to take that too seriously. Especially when there are other people watching. "Come in, it's freezing out there." She draws him in with a hand on his arm, and kisses him on the cheek. She's good-looking in the way all Impudites are, and I just don't care about the details anymore. Human nonsense, like the slinky dress and impractical shoes.

I follow Zhune inside, and if I were doing what I wanted, I'd probably bite someone right now. But that's rude, and apparently I need to worry about _reputation_ , so I smile at Zhune's old friend (number I've-lost-count, he's got more old friends than I've got recent enemies) like I mean it. "You must be Layla."

"And that makes you the new partner." She makes as to offer me a hand, and turns the gesture into waving us further in when I don't offer one in return. We're in a back room of the bar, some sort of stock room and employee lounge, but even with the door further in still closed, I can hear music and voices. 

The heat's turned up in here so high that Zhune peels off his overcoat, and I give up my scarf. "I hope you're not looking to do business first thing," he says, like there is any damn reason other than business why we'd be here.

I can't even figure out right now if he's trying to make me angry, or trying to prove he doesn't care what I think. Maybe both at once. He's a complicated Djinn.

"The day I pay a band to play and then go talk _business_ while my own party's going is--well, that's a pretty bad day." She tucks her arm into his, and gives me enough of a smile and shoulder-turn to make it clear I'm included in the next invitation. "Let me introduce you to the beautiful people."

Turns out she's being pretty literal. There's a jazz band in full swing, and her bar's full of the kind of people an Impudite invites to her own private party. Good looking, weak-willed, well-dressed. And Zhune fits right in, the man in the snappiest suit and the snappiest smile. It takes her about three introductions before he's been passed off to some human woman who'll hang on his sleeve and every word, and I end up part of Layla's mission to get everyone laid tonight.

Which is not on my agenda, thanks, because I have no intention of touching anyone from Lust or anyone she has touched. Which means even if I were into humans that way--and I am not--I'd want to keep my hands off everyone in the room.

Hand, really. I've got my right hand inside my coat pocket still. I unbuttoned the front so that I wouldn't bake in here, and because Zhune won the fight about what I was going to wear to this place, about five hours ago, I still look halfway like a man who knows how to dress himself instead of like I've been sleeping in one outfit for three days. Concession: granted. But my right hand's wrapped in the remains of Zhune's scarf, and I'm still not sure who won that argument. Which means the hand stays in the pocket, I stay friendly to these people she's introducing me to, and I try not to think about how much that _hurts_.

Here's the scorecard on that one: I got the cigarette butt up against my hand long enough to find out just how much the new Discord is going to mess with me. (Answer: a lot. I've been set on fire both before and after I was immune to that sort of thing, including about five days ago, so I know how much fire is supposed to hurt. Not this much.) So that's a point to me. New information. But he said he wasn't going to heal my hand until I promised not to do that again, and I'm not promising, so he's not healing, and we're not speaking to each other, and...yeah. I don't know how the score's running. I need to think about this some more when I'm not in a room with a hundred pretty people, about two thirds of which, I judge, would be willing to get into my pants.

After two dozen introductions, beautiful women and handsome men and pretty variants of both in every variation that falls within the standards set by glossy magazines sold above the counter, I have pity on Layla. Not on her, exactly, because making her wonder could be fun, but I don't want to let her keep going until it's annoying me so much that I--do something. Unwise. I don't feel like this is a good week for pushing my own boundaries, when every step feels like I'm still walking on ice. So I pick some human not quite at random, pretend some interest, and she leaves me be.

I'm not pretty enough for this party. Odd man out. But when I want to be amiable, I can turn on the fucking amiability. So I chat the kid up, and feel a little weird about pulling out lines I used to use on Holly. (Who I wasn't flirting with back then, for the record. Just being nice.) She's too young for this crowd, trying too hard to prove herself, and she's willing to act like she cares about me because if Layla cares, I must matter, right?

I do not need the help of an Impudite of Lust to matter. Or to keep a human's attention. We talk about the music, the party, the hostess (which gets me a lot of Role information that I don't need, and not nearly as much insight into character as I'd hoped), and then the architecture of the city. Which this human doesn't know a damn thing about, and it's a pity. This is one of the cities in the country that dates back far enough that you can say interesting things about what they used to do then, and what they're doing now, and how it's changed, without running out of conversation ten minutes in.

She turns out to be doing liberal arts No Major Yet work at one of the universities here, and we talk Wordsworth until I've put in enough damn social appearance to pass her off to someone prettier than me, and go hide in the back room for a while.

It's quiet back here. I lean against the wall beside Zhune's coat, and wonder if he--of course he's noticed I've left the room, but he can tell I haven't gone far, so we're still on the not talking thing. And I'm not so unprofessional as to ditch before we get the job, even if that means sitting through hours of party while humans sneak upstairs to squeal and thump in various two-and-more combinations.

There's nothing interesting in his pockets. He confiscated my cigarettes and my lighters, and didn't even have the decency to hang onto them so I could swipe them back. Bastard. Whatever. It's probably rude to smoke in here anyway.

After I've been leaning against that wall for half an hour, trying not think about what anything sounds or smells or tastes like when my mind wanders, Layla's the one who comes to check on me. She has a drink for me, and I am _suspicious_ , because it's a once-a-year limited edition bottle of beer that I usually have to wait for June to swipe from stores, and not one of the cocktails everyone else at the party has been holding, courtesy of the under-dressed bartenders serving drinks.

"Sorry for the crowd," she says, with a wry twist of her lips like she means the apology. I don't believe it. I'm not very good at believing people when they say things, lately. Not sure where that came from. "Timing, huh? I can point you at a room upstairs with a lock if you want to hide out until the party's cleared. Another two hours, and I start shooing people back home."

But I accept the beer because. Yeah. There's such a thing as taking paranoia too far. "Sorry," I say, not trying too hard to sound sincere. "I'm not exactly Henry."

She folds her arms lightly. She's doing a lot more assessment of me than she thinks she's letting on. "Will you take it the wrong way if I say I'm glad for that?"

"It seems a common reaction, among people who have met him."

"Some people liked Henry just fine," Layla says. "Shedim, Habbalah... I can give you the key to the room. With or without company, as you prefer."

"Thanks," I say. "But I'm fine here."

I am fine here. She leaves me be. Zhune leaves me be. He's been clingy like a god damn Cherub since we left Stygia, and worse yet, pretending that he's not acting like it. I wouldn't mind his quirks so much if he'd just be honest about them. But I've got a good beer and a lot of time to spend in my own head, which is, let's be honest, not the best combination in the world, but far from the worst.

I'm okay with being alone. Better than some alternatives.

#

When the party ends, I'd say about two thirds of the humans have been kicked out to find their messy way home (theirs or someone else's) and about a third are still lurking in corners, upstairs bedrooms, hallways. A few under the tables. It takes Lust to keep a bar solvent in this part of the city with private parties and three floors of private rooms above, but I get the impression from a few references that this is as much a money laundering operation for Lust as it is any kind of business. Which makes sense. Every Word needs a few of those per continent.

Layla, Zhune and I meet up in her apartment, which takes up a quarter of the top floor and has a view like I would not have believed possible from this street. Enormous windows that must be hell on the heating bill, wrapped around the corners so you can see down two separate streets to the pointy skyline in one direction, historical district in the other. I look between gaps in the curtains while the two of them finish some chat about nothing important, and wonder if Lust built this place, or just took it over.

The only Prince I know who does a lot of building is Baal, and that's all military installations, which hardly count. So probably some human came up with this first, and Lust came by to appreciate it afterward. Look at all the pretty buildings and cars and people and toys, put together by humans so that we can take them away and use them ourselves.

I close the curtains, and turn back to the other two. And my look at Zhune says, _Business?_

I'm not sure if it counts as talking or not that he sinks down onto the couch, and says, "So what's the job?"

"I need you to rob a place," Layla says. She flicks a glance at me before she selects an armchair, some antique--Victorian, I'd think, but furniture isn't my specialty--that lets her see the both of us, him at the couch and me at the window. So I could just go sit down and be part of this conversation if I wanted to. "And it's a little complicated."

I can be part of the conversation just fine from over here. "If it weren't complicated, I don't think you'd call for us."

Layla concedes my point with a gracious wave of her fingers. Her party dress and ridiculous shoes are still all glitz and glamour, but in this room it looks less seductive and more, if I had to choose a word, dangerous. I wonder how powerful she is. Zhune keeps not telling me things. "So let's play good news, bad news. The bad news is that I want you to rob Fire."

I am not looking at Zhune right now, because I do not want to see his expression. "Which side?" I ask. I can play social Calabite. I'm good at it. "We're not talking a Tether, are we?" I don't know of any Fire Tethers in this city, not from either side, but that doesn't mean much. These days I mostly know the locations of Tethers I've robbed.

"God, no," Layla says, and blinks at me. "I can't afford to ask _that_. Ordinary sort of place that happens to have two angels and a few Soldiers attached. And I'm talking divine Fire."

"The good news," Zhune says, "must be amazing."

"Actually," Layla says, "I'm not done with the bad news. But, sure, let's swap. The good news is that I don't care if you get anything out or not. Just hit the place, and leave if it gets sticky."

I lean back against the curtains. I can feel the cold of the glass against my neck, even through the fabric. "Let me guess. The second part of the bad news is that you're going to be telling them we're coming."

Layla and Zhune both look at me, and I could almost feel good. From those expressions. "Yes," says the Impudite. "Smart--Calabite. Want me to explain?"

I could fill out half the explanation myself. But I'm not sure it'd be the right half, and I've already made my point, so I wave a hand graciously. Wish I had another beer. It would be a terrible idea right now, if not so terrible as having three or four more and then, well, then nothing much happens. Zhune doesn't care for male vessels, and we're not talking, anyway.

"I'm building credit," Layla says. "There's an angel in there, not very bright, who I've been reeling in for months. She's convinced that I'm all but hers, divided loyalties, you know. I couldn't possibly, maybe I could, I shouldn't, tell me more." She crosses her legs at the ankles, and rests her head laced fingers. "Theft and Lust get along so well, even Heaven knows. When I tell her that I heard you're about to hit the place, that will mean something, because she knows how much it costs me."

"Trying to pull her down," Zhune asks, "or only into bed?" That sounds like professional curiosity, and I think I know better.

"Bed, Zhune. She's a Malakite."

I think I would have spit out any beer I was drinking, if I'd had the bottle I was wishing for. "How does that even work?"

Lyla shrugs, and smirks a little. Which I cannot begrudge her, under the circumstances. "Malakite of Fire, and since when am I _cruel_? A hundred humans out there would call me their best friend, and could even back it up with proof. I run my business, throw my parties, everyone is of legal age and the drinks aren't doctored. What's there for her to pull up on my honor? Running some money through filters, letting disreputable folks spend the night? Like Fire doesn't do the same. I am the fuzziest, most innocent demon she's ever met in her short, innocent life."

"Nice," Zhune says. "Up until it gets you killed. If you think a chance at Knight is worth the risk, that's your call. What's in it for us?" And he says that in the nicest way, like we'd do this for her anyway, but he's curious as to what the thank-you gift would be.

"Anything you can pull out of that place," Layla says. "Cute little bar, popular with the up-and-coming musician crowd. More to the point, they stash a lot of artifacts there. Nothing earth-shattering, but the little tools people passing through drop off or requisition. You could fill a suitcase with the stuff."

"That's a great payment for hitting the place," I say, "and a lousy payment for hitting it when they're warned. If we end up running out of there with a Malakite on our heels, I'd like to know it was worth the bother for more than one person."

"I can get you the layout, working hours, details on the angels and Soldiers," Layla says. "All of that. And I'll owe you a favor if this works out, which will be worth more... if this works out."

Zhune glances at me, and that look says, _Not good enough._ Which I was thinking anyway, but it's nice to have confirmation, even if we're still not talking to each other. That's just personal shit. This is business.

"I know," I say to her, "that you're an old friend and all, and good for this stuff. But since we've just met, I'm not real comfortable working on promises of maybe from someone who's not a Lilim. Could we get this offer bumped up a little? The last time I ran into divine Fire, it got a little messy. They might be holding a grudge."

"Same vessel?" she asks.

"Nope."

"Pity. That would be--well, I suppose that wouldn't be fair to you." She frowns prettily. "I could have asked some less competent Magpies to do the job, and not told them about the catch. But there's a lot more room for disaster, and we are supposed to play nice. I have plenty of cash, but I can only draw out so much for my own projects."

"Cash," Zhune says, "is boring. Nice. Useful. But boring."

"Yes, but you don't need any help from me in acquiring Servants, you wouldn't keep the same car for more than a week if I found you one, and while I'd be happy to teach a few Songs, you wouldn't stick around long enough to pick them up." Layla unlaces her fingers, and stands. "You're also not saying _no_ , so we've established what we all are, here. We're just dickering over the price. I'll make drinks and we can take our time reaching an agreement. You can't go over there until tomorrow night at the earliest, in any case."

I think if I stand still in here any longer I'm going to start breaking things. And I'm not even sure why, which is _getting_ to me, because it's not the usual reasons. Not boredom or anger or confusion, just this sense in the back of my head that things around me ought to be cracking apart whenever I look at them. "I'm heading out," I say. "I have a few chores to do. I'll be back around dawn."

"I'll leave the back door--" Layla stops, and chuckles. "Well, I can leave it unlocked if you'd like, but I suppose it wouldn't matter. Would you get me a pack of Winston 100s?"

"Sure," I say, even though I haven't got a dime on me. Belonging to Theft means never having to say _Sorry, I'm broke_ for long. 

Zhune holds up a fold of bills between two fingers, and I take it from him as I pass. Because much as we're both Theft, he's a damn sight better at pickpocketing than I am, and I'm not sure how much breaking and entering I want to do tonight. While my head's like this.

We're not talking, but that's okay. Who needs words when we've got a job to do?


	2. An Interlude, In Which Lies Are Told

They took most of an hour after Leo had left for purposes of getting Layla more Essence, since she'd spent the whole party being a hostess instead of entertaining herself. Or perhaps she had been entertaining herself; Zhune found parties a little tedious, too much fuss for a payout that could be acquired as easily with three drinks at the right bar or (less interestingly) by a touch to a human's hand, but Impudites had strange passions. Even Impudites of Lust, from whom one might expect a complete focus on the ordinary range.

Afterwards, she made the promised drinks, and returned to her chair. No curling up on couches or beds with an old friend; she parceled out touch carefully, and he no longer qualified for it, with watchers gone and Essence regained. He could have pressed the issue. No reason to. It wasn't a need, the way style and partner and movement were needs.

"So," she said, and tucked a bare foot beneath her, bathrobe hung loosely over her shoulders and doctored coffee steaming in her hands. "Tell me what happened to Anthony."

He had been expecting the question for long enough that he had an answer ready. "My partner," he said, his cup (a teacup, who put coffee in that? Impudites who sent their invitations for a job with a dress code for their Prohibition-themed parties attached, that's who, and at least he'd been able to stuff the Calabite into something that fell loosely within the parameters, just see if anyone appreciated the work that took) resting in one hand.

"I was rather under the impression," Layla murmured, "that the Game happened to him. There have been certain...conclusions drawn, here and there, about how that might have happened, but I wouldn't have expected anyone from Theft to use that as a weapon. Not against _friends_."

"He didn't," Zhune said, because lies were as easy as walking. He'd learned both the day he was made. "My partner is not the sort of Calabite who breaks things because he feels like it, every time he's a little annoyed." Except for himself, and that was a _new twist_ , now, wasn't it? Or maybe it was a very old one, and Zhune was only now seeing the pattern. "He gets annoyed. He warns people off. He gets fussy. And some people are idiots enough to think that the lack of violence means they can keep pushing, right up until they cross the line where he decides he needs to murder them and all they love."

Layla sipped her coffee. "Anthony never was very good at boundaries, unless he thought you were stronger than him."

"Was?"

"Was, is." She shrugged dismissively, a pretty shoulder dipping beneath the patterned blue silk of her robe. "With his Role in tatters, and portions of his soul much the same after the Game finished with him, I don't see him coming back to Earth any time soon. Not unless my Lord decides to throw him to someone else as an assistant, since he still has the vessel to work with. But what about the Game? I won't argue that Anthony didn't have a little retribution coming, if he pushed someone too far. But there's retribution, and there's...that."

"The Game," Zhune said, "was my fault." He allowed himself to look irate. Not so much that she'd wonder if he was faking it. "I come back from a shift outside the city and find my partner plotting revenge, so I yanked her back out of there before she could do anything. That meant not covering our tracks as well as I'd planned, and one of those tracks must've led straight back to Anthony."

"So you dropped the Game on his head to avoid murdering him."

"Yes," Zhune said. "If I had known that was the choice I was making at the time, I would have gone for the murder instead. Much easier to apologize for afterward."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Layla said, "since when have you started apologizing for anything? I only wanted to know what happened, so that it wouldn't happen to me. I can't afford to pull in that sort of attention here, Zhune. I have a job to do, and people depending on me."

"Yet you're playing with Malakim?"

"One Malakite," she said. "One simple, foolish girl who will get me the promotion I've deserved for decades now." She rolled her eyes at his steady gaze. "And I'm using another vessel, and I've avoided the Mercurian solidly, so they're not going to tie any of it back to this Role. I wouldn't have made it this far without being careful, Zhune. No more than you would have. Though how you survive with some of the partners you choose, I can't imagine. What was the name of that Shedite back in...what, 1730 or so? Kelly, Collie, something ridiculous. I was amazed every time you appeared in front of me again without a torch-wielding mob at your heels."

"Silje," Zhune said. "She had style."

"Whatever happened to her?"

"Soul-killed by Malakim," Zhune said, with a particular weight to the last word. He had finished his ridiculously tiny cup of coffee, and wasn't sure if he wanted more. Leo was...a mile away, not moving any further, no more damaged than the last time he'd checked. Suitable. More coffee would be fine, so he lifted his cup, and was rewarded by having it taken away for a refill.

"If you don't want the job," Layla said, returning with the cup, "you could just say so."

"No," Zhune said, "I like it. I haven't done a deliberate 'Look at me robbing you' con in too long. They have potential for entertainment that actual stealth and secrecy never do. However, you've been a friend for long enough that I'd hate to lose you over a stupid move like this."

"You only say that because you like my parties," Layla said, "and a chance to wear elegant pinstripes again. Tell me, what's going to make this all worth your time?"

Zhune discarded a few answers. _A better leash_ would have just raised questions. _Nothing, the risk is its own reward_ set a bad precedent. "What artifacts do you have on hand? Anything unbreakable?"

"Un--oh. Calabite. Right." She tapped a finger on her lips. "Most of what I have isn't up for grabs. I'm supposed to keep stock on hand for Lust, not anyone else. Not even very good friends. But if you don't mind something a little archaic... I have a knife that won't break. Not much of a talisman, but it carries across to the Marches and Hell, which is worth something. Easy to hide against searches. But no one ever requisitions that, because everyone who still does knives and swords these days has their own equipment by now. I can write it off. Deal?"

Zhune remembered Leo on the floor of that room, and the knives in the Habbalite's hands.

"Deal," he said.


	3. In Which Everything Is Fine

At the first convenience store I find open I buy two packs of cigarettes, a six-pack of disposable lighters, and a cheap pre-paid cell phone that'll stop working after I've been carrying it for a week. At the second convenience store I buy a pack of gum and swipe a hat because it's snowing again outside, and my ears are going numb. Why can't Zhune have friends in southern states? Or Mexico, we could swing down to Mexico. I could learn Spanish. Human languages are easy.

The third convenience store I find is locked and dark, sensible enough to not keep someone staffing the place at four in the morning on a Saturday. I spend a few minutes selectively destroying bits of the security cameras from out of their view, so that they won't show a damn thing but won't alert the security system, before I destroy _that_ and break inside.

But I close the door behind me, because I don't want trouble.

No. I lie. I want trouble. I want someone to stop and see that open door, to walk inside, to give me an excuse to bang their head against a wall and resonate my way through their throat. Which is stupid, utterly _stupid_ , especially with a job left to do in this city, and if I did anything like that Zhune would have a legitimate reason to be angry at me, instead of whatever stupid reasons he has that are making him so fucking unreasonable about everything right now.

I crack open the packaging on my new cell phone, and resonate the packaging into pieces over the trash can behind the counter. Because. I don't know. Maybe I figure there's no reason to make a mess just because I'm going to rob the place. Having a job to do doesn't mean I have to be an asshole about it, and doing inventory will be enough work for whatever poor kid unlocks in the morning without adding a lot of sweeping to the job.

The first number I call rings three times, and picks up to a voice I don't know. "Hello, can I help you?"

I pop open the cash register, and check through. Nothing much there. They clean out the big bills at night. Standard precaution. "Is Iris there?"

"He's not available at the moment, but I could take a message. Could I ask who's calling?"

"No," I say, and end the call. A lot of small bills, nothing bigger than a ten. I ignore the change and grab the cash, which means I'm going to be returning Zhune's money broken down into small bills, but at about the same total as he sent me out. That's probably a metaphor for something.

The next number I call dumps me into voicemail. "I don't even know why I'm calling," I tell the silence after the beep. "I probably shouldn't be." That's enough for that call. I pick out everything with an accelerant in the store--not picking anything up, just figuring out where it is--and wonder if I want to burn the place down.

The disturbance would be an exciting way of keeping those angels on edge, and I'd like to watch the fire. Maybe I could sell it to Zhune as a way to make it all the more convincing that we're a real threat Layla's warned them about, but...no. I think I could sell Layla on it. Smarter than the average Impudite, but she has all the usual expectations for my Band. Get out of my house before you break something, little Destroyer, so that I can talk to my old friend in peace. Yeah. She would buy it. He knows me too well.

_Don't play with fire,_ my Prince said, and here we are taking a job where we're supposed to line up Fire for someone else to play with. But if Zhune thinks it's a good idea, who am I to argue, right? What do I know? Maybe this stupid idea is exactly what we're supposed to be doing with our lives.

Besides, I don't mind messing with divine Fire. They're scary as a subset of Hell, but they deserve anything that comes at them. There's nothing divine about what they do. (I wonder if they're even sure Gabriel is still an Ofanite, in the midst of all those flames. If she keeps breaking things like this, if she's already broken herself until even the other Archangels think she's gone nuts, how could anyone tell the difference?) Half the Words of Heaven are like that, less honest versions of what Hell does.

My phone rings, but caller ID says it's the Flowers Tether, so I ignore it. It shuts up eventually. It's amazing how many problems will go away if you ignore them long enough.

I check through the fridge for any sort of decent beer, and think about what Archangels I know of, and how many of them you'd be able to tell the difference on if they Fell. Fire, ha. Same thing. War, sure, the Balseraph running the War makes it clear how much those are the flip sides of the same coin. Judgment? Not so far as I can tell. Creation, huh, I don't know anything about them. (There is not a decent beer in this whole place. Am I desperate enough for Blue Moon? Maybe. Am I desperate enough for a wine cooler? No.) Maybe he disappeared because he turned Impudite. You'd get about the same effects, and it can't be very Mercurian to have Servitors that good at killing people, but just look at Sean, there's nothing in that Choir that says you can't harass people unfairly and threaten them with violence.

I sit cross-legged between a row of shelves, and stare at overpriced two-packs of painkillers while I drink beer. Dreams, eh, I kept out of their way, but that's another flipside thing. Fighting over territory with Nightmares, and the details don't matter. Wind? Ha. Even parts of Heaven think they're Theft with another name. (They're not. They play stupid pranks, Heaven's brand of Dark Humor, while we focus.) Lightning, Technology, look at the Elohite and Habbalite thing all over again. Who could tell? Being cold-hearted about sacrificing people for the greater good makes no difference to those sacrificed, compared to being destroyed out of anger.

I can't figure out what the Sword would be if Malakim could even Fall--picture a Lilim of the Sword, and boggle--so, fair's fair. I guess that one they'd be able to tell if a demon took over. Flowers, okay. I can't imagine a Djinn giving the same results. Destiny and Fate are--I don't know. I guess they're flip sides again, books and lives and subtle manipulation, but I don't know enough about either to say. I'm not even sure what Choir Yves is supposed to be. And for Animals, sure, that's got to be a Kyriotate. No Shedite can hang around inside of animals, and most of the world doesn't even care about that Word, so Heaven can keep it.

One Free Lilim told me that she'd made deals with Traders before. That Freedom and Trade get along like no other two Words across the divide of the War, not even Judgment and the Game, who as far as I can tell mostly dislike each other because they can't agree on who gets to punish people who break their respective rules. (Judgment, now there's a Word that could be held by a Habbalite without anyone being able to tell the difference.) There's that much to their credit: Trade always played fair with me.

But I've met Impudites who are reasonably trustworthy, and I've met Sean, who is everything a Mercurian shouldn't be, so I guess Trade's no different from the majority. Turn Marc into an Impudite, and what's the difference? They get along with Janus anyway, so they clearly don't have anything against theft, even if they aren't so fond of Theft. Steal Essence, steal money, make a fair deal if someone can catch you and pin you down to do it, just like the Lilim. Yeah. Trade would stand up okay in Hell. Or make Marc into a Lilim, instead of an Impudite, and that'd work even better.

I have never gotten past the irony of Freedom being all about imposing inescapable consequences and literal manacles on people. But that's Hell for you. We're big on irony. Irony, torture, and bad traffic.

I'm through one bottle of beer. Probably more than enough. I'm nowhere near tipsy, won't be for a while, but let's talk about _bad ideas_ , Leo. Coming back to the Impudite's place would be a bad idea, we remember what happened the last time we got drunk around an Impudite of Lust, don't we? Yes, we do.

The phone rings, and I don't recognize the number. And. I have this one moment where I am not sure, because what could Penny do? Or anyone else checking that message box, he never said it was only him, he never promised me _anything_ about that. What kind of idiot am I to be trusting an angel who never made promises in that area? What kind of idiot am I to be calling one in the first place?

The kind of idiot who's answering the phone. "Hey," I say, and slouch down on the ground, propping my feet up on the shelf of Pepto Bismol bottles. Have to admit, these are pretty good boots. Zhune knows how to pick them out.

"Hello," says Penny, or at least someone who sounds exactly like him. And he sounds pretty cautious, but I guess he hasn't heard from me in this vessel, has he. Different voice. It makes me feel better, to remember that he's got reasons to worry too. I could run him into all sorts of trouble if I really wanted to. Fair's fair.

"Yeah, it's Leo. How's it going?" I kick bottles out of my way to give me a better foot rest. The shelves at my back aren't so comfortable, but I can cope. I'm invisible from the street down here. Nothing suspicious going on in this neighborhood tonight.

"Various projects proceed at various rates," Penny says, and I guess that is a hard question for a Seraph to answer. He sounds less worried now, so the truth of my identity must've at least come through. Handy. Talking to Seraphim is like walking through a minefield laid in a library. You can get so much out of the conversation, and there are so many dangers lurking. "How are you, Leo?"

"I'm fine," I say, and resonate the cap off another bottle. It's not the worst beer in the fridge, but I'm still not sure it's the best. "I'm fine, my partner's fine, everything's fine. It's been a decent week. Nothing new."

He makes a sound like I just punched him.

Fuck. Or. I don't know. Oops.

"Sorry," I say. "Let's not talk about that, let's really not talk about that. But seriously, how are you doing? It's been a while."

"Leo--"

"If you try to talk about what happened this week," I say, "I'm going to hang up. I swear I will. So we're not talking about that."

There's a long silence, like maybe he's willing to try. Doesn't he know I keep my promises? But he says, "I won't ask about that on this call." You have to love Seraphic precision. "I have been worried about you."

"Why?" Wait, wrong question. "You shouldn't be. Sorry for ditching so suddenly last time we met up, but you know how it goes. Princes to meet, the world to save. Didn't Sean tell you that worked out okay? Though the part where we didn't get a massively lethal plague spreading across the country should've been a hint."

"No," Penny said, "Sean didn't talk to me about the aftermath. Not until I found him later. Recently."

"Oh. Well. That's Sean for you." I pick a cheap compass off the shelf, and toss it in the air. Catch. Toss and catch. It's a little tricky to talk on the phone with no hands, so I use my bandaged hand to hold the phone in place instead of getting my neck in an awkward position. The hand doesn't hurt--no, it still hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as it would if I were human, probably. They can't take much of anything, and I'm used to pain. It hurts, it goes away, it doesn't matter. Meaningless, annoying noise, like static on the radio. "Do you know, he never thanked me for that? I save the world, I tell him it needs saving, I let him come along, I give him a demon to shoot, I even pulled him the fuck out of there when he wasn't about to get out himself, and does he thank me? No. Tries to hold me up and rob me. Which is _my_ job, not his. I don't get why no one ever says thank you."

"A variety of reasons," Penny says, ever so carefully, and I wonder if he's got a headache. Being a Seraph must be painful. I wonder how long this compass will take to stop working while I play with it. I wonder what Penny is doing, or where he is. (Probably not in a convenience store he's robbing. Doesn't seem his style.) "Why did you save him?"

"I don't know. Why do I do anything? For the amusement value?" I catch the compass between my fingers, and resonate it into dust. "Though it would've been pretty funny to leave him there. All that time pushing me around, and he can't fight off a dozen humans."

"But you didn't," Penny says.

"Apparently not." I lean forward and poke through the shelf for anything else, hard to see from the streetlight outside when there are shadows laid over everything from the shelf at my back. Phone chargers, painkillers, bottle opener in the shape of a bell. "Maybe I should have. Sorry you were worried. I might've found a way to send a note or something if I knew Sean was enough of an asshole to other angels too that he wouldn't tell you I got out."

"I suspect," Penny says, "that you would not have sent a note."

"No. I guess not. Probably not. I'm not very good at those. Maybe that's why no one ever says thank you. Karmic retribution for the way I keep running off and not thanking people for their help. Did I ever say thanks for the help in getting Katherine out?"

"No," Penny says.

"Thank you for that. Even if it did end up delivering me to--the Boss, but that part wasn't your fault." I run my finger around and around the edges of the bottle opener, and if I can't see well enough in here to watch the tarnish build, I can feel the metal decaying under my touch. Just a little taste of resonance. The tiniest bit. "Do you know how Katherine is doing these days?"

"Roughly," Penny says.

"Good. Don't tell me. Just--I'm sure she's fine. Which doesn't matter, because that whole problem is off my hands now. You would not believe how complicated it is to handle child care and theft at the same time, especially when my partner refuses to do his share of the work. Attuning to the kid and telling her to sit down and shut up is no way to get her an education."

"Leo," Penny says, "why did you call?"

From a lot of people, I would take that as a sign that I was annoying them. Babbling about stupid old shit that doesn't matter anymore. Interrupting them in the middle of the night to talk about nothing at all. But I don't think he means it that way. So maybe I can try being honest, or as honest as I can get myself to be, which he would tell me is not at all the same thing as telling the truth.

"I don't know, Penny. I don't rightly know. Maybe I just wanted to catch up with an old friend and talk about the good times, what few we had between fight and flight and everything going south. Make sure you were still okay."

"I am generally 'okay'," Penny says, I can hear the quote marks around the word, which is not Seraphically precise at all. "My duties are seldom perilous. What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," I say. "I shouldn't be talking to you at all. This could get me into so much fucking trouble, you know. Chatting with angels. I'm pretty sure that's on the Thou Shalt Not list that the Game keeps secret from the rest of us. It's probably even on Theft's version of that list, which is not so much a list as a bunch of suggestions. Can you track where I am, when I call?"

"Yes," Penny says. "I could."

"Do you?"

"I'm not doing so this time."

Well, that's as good as I'm going to get. "I should go," I say. "Sooner or later someone's going to come open up this shop, and I haven't even worked out what else I want to take yet. Do you have any suggestions?"

Penny sighs faintly. I wonder how he gets along with the Wind, and if he sounds the same way when they show up at Trade Tethers with things they looted from humans who might or might not have deserved it. I never got the impression that they sit there and work out all the possible ramifications of someone losing what they can't afford to, before they steal things. Hey, this guy's an asshole, take his car, never mind that the loss of transportation will put his family on the street. Over in Theft, we know we're doing that, even if we don't _care_.

"We could talk about Eder," he says.

"That's not the kind of suggestion I meant, and you know it." I stand up, and leave the beer in the middle of the floor. So someone will have to clean up that much. "Let's not."

"When it came back to us--"

"Let's _not_." I track down the closet where they keep cleaning supplies, and get out a broom and dustpan. "Let's not talk about that, ever, and I told it to keep my name out of this whole fucking idiot idea."

"The idea was yours, Leo."

"Which made it no less stupid." I tuck the phone between my shoulder and ear, and get the bottle I resonated into dust swept up. Then I have to crouch down to get the dust into the pan, which is all kinds of awkward. This would be easier with a hand that didn't hurt and could bend properly. Zhune had no right to leave it that way. He's fixed injuries I've gotten for much less useful reasons. "Let's talk about something else. Read any good books lately?"

"I don't understand," Penny says, "how you could send it back to us, and still won't come to us yourself."

"It's simple." Unlike getting this mess cleaned up. I have to open the remaining beer from the six-pack and pour it all down the sink so that I can destroy the bottles without making an unholy mess of beer and glass dust. "It never should have been there. There was some cosmic mistake that made one bad decision turn into a long-term stint in Hell, and I guess Heaven's all about that sort of thing, given how most humans get there, but I didn't think it was fair. And if anyone ever finds out they will kill me, so let's just _not_ talk about this at all."

"Do you believe you deserve to be in Hell?"

I do not want to think about Hell. I do not want to think about going back. I do not want to think about any of this, and the phone call was a terrible idea, but Zhune still _isn't talking to me_ , and I'm not talking to him as long as he's this unreasonable about everything. He still hasn't said thank you. "Probably," I say. "You tell me. Is it true?"

"It's not even clear to me what you believe is true, on that one," Penny says. "Do you want to know what I believe?"

"No."

"Liar."

I hang up. It's easier to clean up with both hands anyway.

He calls back twice, and the third time the phone starts ringing I destroy it. Cleaning up the evidence. I've done a decent job of that. Fixed the mussed shelves, all the trash in the bin where it goes, nothing to show I've been here but the missing cash, six-pack, compass and bottle opener.

I'm tempted to fill the drawers with the same cash it had before, and see how long it takes anyone to notice all the security is out in this place. I picked the lock instead of resonating it away, so I could even lock up behind me. Maybe they'd never notice, recording blank video for days or weeks or months, however long it takes for this place to get robbed again and make them go check the tapes. Files? Whatever they record video onto these days. I don't really keep up with tech.

But I'm pretty sure that's against another one of those non-rules we're not supposed to break in Theft, not unless we can do it without getting caught, so I keep the money and let myself back out. Lock up after I go. If anyone else wants to rob the place, they ought to work for it. Nothing in life is free.

I don't get where Penny comes up with that. Liar. That one was the truth. I don't want to know what he thinks about me, because knowing he was worried is nice, like stupid temporary things are nice, ignorance and beer and fast cars and knowing my partner worries about me too, and I didn't want to break that with more details.

I know what he _wants_ out of me. Poor optimistic Seraph, thinking he can coax me over to his side if he's just polite and reliable and patient enough. Like it ever works that way. But I don't want to know what he thinks I deserve, because that's a different question entirely. Nobody gets what they deserve, nobody gives what they ought, and no one ever fucking says thank you.

Three blocks from Layla's place, a police car slows down on its way past me. Two cops inside, keeping an eye on who might be wandering this neighborhood at five in the morning. That's how you can tell it's a good part of town. I nod to them, and whatever Zhune made me wear must be working, because much as I don't look like an early morning jogger--who would go jogging in this slush anyway?--a cop inside nods back to me, and they keep on moving.

I resonate a small flaw into the engine of the cruiser as it goes past. Just to see if I can. Precision work with a resonance is fiddly, doubly so when it's moving, invisible to me, just a sense of where things _ought_ to be under that hood. But I think I pulled it off. That'll give them some trouble the next time they try to go above 65, and isn't it more fair for all of us if the cops have to stick to the speed limits they want to hold us to?

But someone has to make the rules. You can't get anything out of breaking them otherwise. Theft can't get any traction without property rights. Maybe that's why a Djinn stolen from the Game works so well in Theft. He knows _all_ the rules, so he's better at breaking them selectively than the rest of us.

I wonder where Valefor came from, since I've never heard any good suggestions. They say he just popped up out of nowhere, a book from Destiny's library in hand, and worked his way up from there.

Maybe the Boss is what happens when an Ofanite of Judgment decides to go have _fun_.

Weird thoughts tonight. Usually I don't spend so much time thinking about the big picture stuff, or Superiors that I'm not currently worried about being destroyed by. (Having met the Archangel of War once, let's _never do that again_. I think even Penny would agree with me on this one.) They're a distraction from the job, and this one looks to be a real treat. Go fuck with Fire when they know we're coming. Still, two angels, that's well within our capabilities, especially since we know that they know we're coming. One of us keeps the Malakite distracted, maybe a good chase scene to make the blackwing feel all heroic and swagger back to her friendly neighborhood Lustie like she accomplished something, the other tags the Mercurian--down, maybe not out, we weren't asked to _kill_ anyone here, but I'm not going to underestimate that Choir. I know better.

Night's probably the best time to do the hit, even if the place is busy at night. Maybe best for that exact reason, because blending into a crowd keeps the angels from resonating everything in sight. Sweep in, get the stuff, only engage if they're sharp enough to have someone watching the back. Which they probably will, but that's why there's _two_ of us to work the job. Always keep someone around to watch your back. I can count on Zhune for that much.

When I reach the back door, steps just as slick as before, the door opens for me before I can check to see if it was locked. Zhune's standing there. Not waiting up for me so much as watching through attunement for when I got back.

"You're back early," he says, and steps out of my way so I can get in from the cold.

"I got bored," I say. Inside, I drag my scarf off again, that stupid hat, my coat, and hang them up next to his overcoat. "Tell me there's something fun to do between working out our plan of attack and executing it."

"Depends on your idea of fun," Zhune says. He sorts through the pockets of my coat, and takes out the cigarettes I bought for Layla. Leaves the rest in, which is... I don't know. Something. "If you got laid more often, maybe you'd stop being so touchy about everything."

"So find me a Balseraph," I say. "You know what I like as much as the reverse, and Impudites of Lust aren't on the list, nor are their pets."

He grabs my hand, the one wrapped in the bloody remains of his scarf, and a whisper of Essence later, my hand is feeling fine. Like it should. "Get into any trouble?"

"If I can't knock over a convenience store without getting caught," I say, "you need to find a more competent partner. No, I didn't get in any fucking trouble. Did you work out a way for us to get paid for this?"

"Naturally," he says, and offers me a knife by the blade.

Which means. Nothing. It's not even like the knives--like any other knives I've seen recently. "Like I know how to use that?" I say, and take it. It's got that feel under my fingers of an artifact. "What part of 'Calabite' did you miss, that I need weapons now?"

"Sometimes it's good to have a backup," he says. "You don't like it, you can sell it or swap it the next time you see something you do want. And maybe it wouldn't hurt for you to go around better armed next time we visit home. You can use it fine if you're using that."

He's probably right. I'm not so experienced with artifacts as to be able to read everything they do from feel, the way some people can. "Fine," I say, and tuck it up a sleeve. Where it _stays_ , with no sign on the outside that it's there, because that's what a decent artifact can do. I saw a Cherub pull a flaming sword out of her bikini top once. Now that was something you don't forget. "Does Layla at least get cable?"

"If you're watching period dramas again, I'm leaving the room."

"And somehow, I'm okay with this."

So everything's fine. Back to normal. He got to sulk, I got to go make a few stupid decisions, and we all even back out to where we're supposed to be. We are fine here. Everything is _fine_.


	4. In Which Everything Is Worse With Malakim

The bar's not quite a dive, but close enough to one that I fit in with the regulars, even wearing the kind of clothes I like instead of what Zhune likes to dress me in. I've got a beer at hand, Guiness on draft (which is not all that and a bag of chips like I used to think, but I'll take it), to keep me company at a table that was unfilled when I got here because it has a terrible view of the stage.

But I'm not watching the stage, which currently holds three college kids doing a mediocre cover of "London Calling." My point of interest is the Mercurian behind the bar. Short, rounded, hair pulled back by a bright white band so that it fuzzes out behind her head like a halo of black curls. She doesn't smile too much, but she's got a focus on the people she speaks to for longer than a drinks order and hand-off that's--I don't know. It'd be nice to think that I could totally spot that intensity as _there's an angel behind those eyes_ if I'd stopped in here for beer on my own, but I probably wouldn't. Nothing stops humans from having Seraphic bodies or Cherubic clinginess or Habbalite sneers or Shedite creepiness, or we'd never fit in downstairs. If Layla hadn't told me, I'd think the bartender was human. Most people are.

There's a hallway on the other side of the bar from where I'm sitting. Two doors for bathrooms, two staff-only doors. One of those leads to break room as mundane as you could ask for, and a fire exit. The other leads to a storeroom, which is 95% storage of mundane items and 5% what we're supposed to be going after. What Layla spent this afternoon confessing to a Malakite we'd be going after.

The Malakite usually spends all night watching the crowd, hauling boxes from the storeroom, washing glasses and generally making herself helpful to the humans who largely run the bar. (The mind boggles a little at the concept. Malakim, doing the dishes.) Tonight she's not in sight. We expect she's in the storeroom itself, watching for our incursion. Specifically: Zhune's. He gets to take point on this job, because if someone runs a fiery sword through him, he can take it. Probably.

See, this is why it was a good idea for me to try out that cigarette yesterday. I _know_ what my vessel can take, and with his brand new one, neither of us is quite sure yet. If he gets shot twice and keels over, I am going to be full of _I told you so_ when he gets out of Trauma. And if someone decides to steal him from Trauma this time--

No. I am not thinking about that. I have a job to do. I'm a professional. I've been part of Theft for years now. This is simple, this is easy, and I'll stay focused because even simple jobs occasionally explode in unexpected directions. If Zhune does something stupid and hits Trauma I will cope like a god damn Magpie, which is, last I was told, what I am this decade. Maybe I'll even last more than a decade on this Word. Wouldn't that be a lovely change of pace?

Should've been me going into that room, Malakite or no, because if Zhune is sneakier, I can break things more _quietly_. As soon as as he starts to knock things over, there's going to be disturbance, and disturbance means--

\--that the Mercurian is going to hear it before I do, being an angel (fair's fair, they're a little more clued in to what the Symphony sounds like around us) and, for that matter, closer to the right room. Because she glances in that direction suddenly, and has to ask for the order she was taking again.

But she's not heading back there. Not yet. So I don't have to make any move, just listen until the first tiny jangle of disturbance makes its way to me. Nothing worrisome, no Songs or dropping vessels or massive destruction, just the kind of disturbance you get when maybe someone knocks over a case of breakable bottles during a scuffle.

A distracted Mercurian makes for a lousy bartender, and I wish I could hear over this terrible band to if there's any real noise going on back there. Maybe she does too, because she keeps looking back there. Yes, be a good angel and keep your attention on the right point without getting your hands dirty. Maybe we've actually found a Mercurian who does the whole peace-and-love thing the Choir's supposed to be known for. Now that would be a first. Even Iris threatened me once, and he's in _Flowers_.

Though it was a pretty polite threat. I've been threatened a lot, so I figure I can rate them by now. Credit where it's due.

I can hear that door slam, but no more disturbance. So I bide my time like a good partner who's watching for danger, minutes stretching away under the attack of I don't even know _what_ the band is covering now, until the new cell phone I picked up this afternoon rings. Which makes me the asshole in the bar leaning back in the corner and taking a call inside. "Yeah?"

"Out," Zhune says. I can barely make out his voice over the noise in here. "Go do the second sweep."

"I'm not sure it's worth it," I say, and watch the Mercurian, who is not watching me. The tension drains right out of her when the Malakite appears, steps behind the bar carrying a tray of clean glasses. The Malakite: not much taller, dark red hair, a bounce in her step. Like she's just chased away the big bad demon. "Let's head out."

"Don't be a fucking coward, Leo," Zhune says. "Head in while you have the chance." He hangs up before I can say anything pointed about his tendency to get his kicks on taunting what shouldn't be taunted. And wouldn't this job look even better for Layla if we let the Malakite think she won?

He's acting like he's in charge, like we're not _partners_ , and I don't like it. But ditching what I agreed to do won't make me look any more equal. He's set it up so either I do what I say, and acknowledge he's right, or walk out and look like I'm scared.

Scared would be a reasonable response to a Malakite of Fire. They set their _hands_ on fire. This could get me killed. And, what, do I go say _I told you so_ again if I'm the one coming out of Trauma?

Too much thinking. Not enough doing. Maybe if we pull a few more jobs after this where everything goes according to plan, where we're clever and fast and better than the opposition, he'll get his head back on straight and act like he ought to.

I leave my table, and walk to the hallway with the bathrooms. Mercurian and Malakite, still whispering to each other behind the bar, don't even glance in my direction as I pass. This is why I ask for the inconspicuous vessels when I can, while Zhune's fixated on the stylish, pretty ones. Not attracting attention is part of the job, and I don't have his annoying daredevil streak that makes him want to amp up the style until it gets us both in trouble.

Like this part right here, where it's a standard variation on "make a distraction and hit the place," except the first hit was the distraction, and now I'm in to get the payment. This whole job's so easy, Malakite-taunting aside, that I don't see there's any reason for us to grab more. Run off with Layla's knife (still up my sleeve) and good intentions, call it a done deal. I'd rather be doing a museum job. Those are _interesting_. Taunting angels isn't. But all the same, I walk into the men's restroom--in this vessel I don't have to pause and remember which door to pick anymore--and wash my hands, wait for no one else to be in there, and slip on my favorite Song. It's the one I like to think of as _You can't see me_.

I ghost out the door around the next human to open it, and wait in the hall for a moment when it's briefly empty, no one looking at the storeroom door. Then I just resonate my way through the lock. No time for messing around with lockpicks, when that legacy from Fire (the proper infernal brand) makes me the quietest Destroyer you get on this spinning ball of mud.

So, the storeroom. Exactly as it was described to us. Shelves with boxes, desk with a cheap computer, and the remains of a broken case of beer on the floor. Someone ought to get around to mopping that up before it spreads everywhere. I step over the mess and pop open the desk drawers on the side, one by one. The junk inside is mostly that, lost and found _junk_ , but I run my fingers through and pick out anything that feels like an artifact. A silver key with a tree emblazoned on it (I don't think I can use that one), a sleek dark blue tie (something about making deals? not sure), brass knuckles (obvious use, and boring), a handful of bullets (useless without the matching gun), a set of fuzzy dice (might keep those myself, if I remember to take them from one car to the next), a single golden loop that's probably an earring and which has a function I can't even guess at. Maybe you wear it and it tells you the 90s called and want the single-earring fashion statement back.

The doorknob turns. Hell. Timing, why don't I have it today? Because Zhune's pushing me to move instead of letting me make my own judgment calls, that's why. I slide the last drawer quietly shut as the door opens, and hope that--

No, it's the Malakite. Scratch that hope. Maybe she won't notice that she just opened an unlocked door that she left locked? No, she's peering into the room with narrowed eyes like she might be able to see me in the shadows. Stupid, but not _that_ stupid. I edge away from the desk, one silent footstep after the other--sturdy boots aren't always quiet ones or comfortable ones, but these are all three--and hope she goes for the desk to check. Because all she needs to do is get out of the way of the door, and I can run for it.

But. She doesn't. She closes the door and stands in front of it. This is a good time for me to start figuring out how long it would take to carve an exit out of the wall behind me, and how that maps to the amount of time I have left before this Song wears off.

Her gaze sweeps over me, and freezes. Which means things are about to turn into some sort of half-invisible scramble, and I am not looking forward to hands of fire, but in a bar she's presumably attached to maybe she'll be a little careful about the flammability issue, right?

And she blinks rapidly. Presses her hands flat behind her against the door, like she's trying to keep it shut. And says, "What the _hell_."

Isn't that my line?

I back up to the wall that separates me from the world outside, and draw a hand along it. Let's see. Avoiding structurally important areas, better blasting through just drywall and insulation, if I give up on subtlety and just bang straight through, I'm still going to need at least two shots to clear enough space to run through, even ducking, rather than squeezing through. No one wants to get caught in the middle of a wall with a Malakite on their literal heels.

"Hey," says the Malakite, who is engaging in a suspicious lack of hostile moves so far, except for blocking the door, which is pretty hostile right there. "I know that--look, you can't be Wind messing around here, I _know_ you're with Theft, but if you'll just wait a few minutes and talk, everything will be okay. Really. We can work with this."

What. The everloving. Fuck.

Is Dark Humor lurking in here somewhere? Because this even weirder than the fan club thing, and I thought the fan club in Shal-Mari had hit the absolute peak of weirdness for my life. Or if not for my life, at least for the _month_.

"Look," says the Malakite, and holds up one hand. Empty. Not on fire. Something is very wrong here. "I'm not going to hurt you. But I can see what you did for that Shedite, and--"

I grab her by the collar, not real sure when I crossed the floor, and she shuts up. "Stay the hell out of my head. That is none of your _business_."

"Angel of god," she says, and smiles sadly, like this is some sort of pathetic display she's got to feel sorry for me over. "It's always my business. You want to talk about this?"

"If you tell anyone," I say, and I'm no longer sure where I'm even finding words for this sort of thing, "they will kill me. The permanent way."

"You could come with us," she says. "You could stay. We could get you _help_."

"If I wanted Heaven's help," I say, and I am not thinking of Nik or Penny or Iris or even that asshole Sean who helped me save the world, "I would've asked for it a long time ago."

She grabs my arm, drags her fingers down to my bare hand before I even know what she's doing, and stares at where I am, where I know she can't _see_ me, even harder. "You have no idea what you could be."

I yank out of her grasp, like she's not even trying that hard to hold me, and blast a hole in the back wall.

When she runs for that, I slip past her, out the door. By the time she's figured it out I'm out the fire exit in the back, and she's not going to find me once I'm in the crowd on the street outside. Dozens of bars up and down this street, building crowds for a Saturday night, and I'm one more human walking between the others. Even with the bang of disturbance when the Song wears off, some fifteen minutes later, she's never going to find me out here. No way to know what I look like, and I'm not glancing back over my shoulder like I have anything to hide.

And. She doesn't catch up. So that's fine. Awkward way of doing a break-in, could've been a lot quieter. Always knew there would be the Song's disturbance at the end. I reverse direction once that rattle is over, walk right through the crowds again, a leisurely stroll down the same street. When I pass the bar again, it's not on fire or anything. Two angels got robbed, but they have better things to do than spend a lot of time chasing me down.

I wonder how much the Malakite picked up when she looked in my head. Which isn't fair. Malakim get enough cheat codes already, with no Trauma and the tendency to buzz-saw through enemies, without getting to look inside people's pasts. That's the problem with angels. No concept of privacy. A Habbalite will override whatever you're feeling when you walk into the room with her, but she can't know what you felt about her when you weren't standing there sick with the love.

Seraphim are okay. They can't get anything out of me if I don't talk. And I'm pretty good at shutting up when I'm not drunk.

Damn Malakim. (Zhune would say, "Blessed Malakim," and that's how you know he's spent more time in Hell than I have. My cursing is all in English. Never learned many curses from my first supervisor, she thought they were a sign of poor manners and low intelligence.) All I need to do is stay away from them until that whole incident with Eder slides off my record, and that's... I don't know. A few more days? A year? _Forever_? Or maybe I need to do something even worse to overwrite it. Worst thing I've ever done: something _other_ than betraying my Prince (yes, Leo, let's put a name on it, like we haven't before) by helping a Servitor of another Prince escape. Through one of his Tethers. Taking one of his Soldiers. Which he walked straight into a Tether of Trade that I gave him the address for, and I was not lying back there, as that idiot Malakite would know if she were a useful sort of Choir instead.

They're going to kill me if they find out.

I get in the passenger seat of the car where Zhune's waiting. And he just looks at me, like he's expecting something out of me.

"It was a bunch of cheap shit," I say, "and not worth the time. But there wasn't any trouble. Let's get out of this city already."

I wonder if he'll throw a fit if I smoke in the car.


	5. An Interlude, In Which We Are All Very Clear With Each Other

Zhune drove for twenty minutes, with no particular destination in mind, before he realized what was wrong. It was not that Leo let him drive (as that happened whenever the Calabite was busy with the morass of his own thoughts, and some of that had to be allowed under current circumstances), or even the moody silence coming from that side of the car. It was that Leo had not put on his seatbelt. There had been arguments about this matter, early on. _I need to be able to get out fast_ versus _And if you go through the windshield when I hit the brakes, I can't put the pieces together again_. They had compromised on following their own preferences.

But Leo always wore his seatbelt, one of a hundred idiosyncratic details that would have let Zhune spot his attuned in any vessel, even without the attunement. And. He was not doing this.

Two thousand years ago, he would have noticed in an instant. One learned to watch for details. But Theft cared about very different details, and so Zhune noticed exits and escape routes and angles of approach and how much everything cost, and did not notice that his partner was entirely off-kilter, beyond anything a simple snatch-and-run job could justify, for twenty entire minutes. An unacceptable delay.

His resonance said, _safe and near and staying near_ , but he had learned--was ever learning--that "safe" didn't mean the same thing with this partner as some others. Which was what made him interesting. Get in his head and you owned him, get in his body and meant nothing unless you brought his mind along into that game. Therefore. Something happened back at that bar, and maybe that had been a bad idea. Maybe it was time to keep the Calabite on a much tighter leash around angels. Though it shouldn't have been a problem, not with a Mercurian and a Malakite, it wasn't as if there was a Seraph there to put any hooks into his partner's head. Neither of the angels back there were the type he went fishing for when he cast his partner out to see what would come sniffing. Trying to take what was his, and following the reeled-in line all the way back to where he could _grab_.

(He had not thought about fishing in a very long time. One of those skills one picked up for a Role, held for centuries, and then let slip away between the fingers when the world moved on. No loss. Most things that slipped away were no loss. The world always moved on.)

He turned the headlights off, and tailgated the next semi he found for three miles. Passed it on the right, took off someone's mirror, whipped between cars in impossible gaps, and when that was not _working_ , he hit the brakes so hard Leo bounced off the dash, and pulled over to the shoulder.

"This," Leo said, "is why you should let me drive." He reached for the door handle, and Zhune grabbed that wrist.

"What happened?"

"What happened is that you have the driving skills of a blind squid, that's what happened," Leo said. "Give me the keys."

"No," Zhune said. "I'm not stupid. Something happened at the bar, and it's so deep inside your head that you're not acting like yourself. Since you're a demon, it can't be a Shedite, so I can only assume you went and started talking to angels. Don't you know better by now?"

"You," Leo said tightly, "have no place to criticize on that. Given what you push me into. And if you think I want to have any conversation, ever, with divine Fire--"

"No," Zhune said, and wished that his partner would stop trying to twist away from what he meant. He liked the twisting, most days. A good trait to have in someone else, to set against his own more straightforward nature. Kept him from getting boring. (He was not sure which of the two of them he meant, there. Maybe both.) But the most important conversations were like trying to carry water in his hands. "You're changing the subject. Tell me what happened."

"Nothing," Leo said. "I walked in. I took stuff. I walked out. You're just going to have to forgive me if I'm not at my usual levels of scintillating wit and conversation this week, because it has been a long one."

"Tell me," Zhune said.

"Stop being an asshole," Leo said. "It's not like you can hurt me."

Zhune put a fist through the dash in front of Leo, and oh, that made the Calabite twitch. Not too far. There was still a hand over his wrist. "I can make you wish that was an option instead," Zhune said, and could not entirely believe he had laid it out. Like that. "What happened?"

Leo looked away from him. "Malakite looked in my head. Saw...I don't know what. Probably some stupid thing I did while I was Renegade, and wanted to _chat_ over that. So I made a distraction and ditched."

"If you were telling the truth, you would be looking at me," Zhune said. He had to slow down. Work this out. They'd run into Malakim before, time and again, singly or in packs, and while those were usually _his_ problem, his partner ducking away to do distractions and backup and support work, none of them had shown any tendency to stop and chat in the middle of those fights. What could push Fire, of all the Words of Heaven, to that end? A stupid Malakite who already thought she could save an Impudite of Lust--no, not so stupid as to pause and chat with any demon at all. She hadn't with him. "She saw something you haven't told me about. Didn't she."

"How would I know?"

Zhune increased the pressure of his grip, slow and steady right up until the dizzying moment where he could feel dissonance just _waiting_ on the other side. No further. Never any further than that. "Leo," he said, "if you're not telling me, and it's enough to make a Malakite pause, then you have fucked up so badly that it has you running scared. And I cannot help you, I cannot watch your back, unless I know what we're up against."

He got back silence, which was better than a lie. Nothing wrong with a few lies from partners, a man expected those things, but on small, personal matters. Not this. (And had there been a lie yet, or merely an omission? As if the difference mattered, outside of a few dissonance conditions.) Which meant. Ah. Time to bring out the arguments neither of them would like, because he could not wait on this, not wait and not know what was lurking.

"I was under the impression," Zhune said, so gently that the Calabite tensed in his grip, "that you wanted my help. That was what that whole stupid trip was over, wasn't it? Keeping me around? I can't be any help if you don't tell me what's coming."

"Oh," Leo said, "you are not going to like this."

"Knew that. Talk." He let go, to prove a point.

Leo slumped back in the seat, and stared out the windshield, where snowflakes spiraled down through the glow of the freeway lights, and melted when they touched the glass. That wouldn't last, now that the engine was off. The two of them could wait until the car was buried in white if that's what it took to get to the heart of this. And then he could--deal. With the results. There was always a rule being broken, and there was always a way to escape the rules. The twin truths of his two lives, building on each other.

"When I went looking for you," Leo said, "I had to incur...debts." He touched his arm near the shoulder, exactly as if a Geas band sat there. Which it probably did, in his true form. Zhune knew the gesture. "One of them is likely to get me killed. Meant to talk about that once things settled down some more, since the due date isn't any time soon. The other I already cleared. That's the one the Malakite saw."

"You were geased into doing something that Heaven approves of?"

"No," Leo said, and turned to face him, smiled deliberately. All teeth and danger. Exactly like the Boss. "No, I don't have _that_ excuse. I promised to give that Shedite what it wanted, and I did exactly that, because apparently, Zhune, I am pretty good at keeping my word. That depressive Joker never should have been in Hell to start with, and do you know what it really wanted? Deep down? To go back to Heaven. I could read that like a _Need_ in every word it said, and I made the promise before I knew. So I found him a Tether and a host he wouldn't worry about breaking, and pointed him at every Trade Tether I knew close enough for him to get there before anyone noticed he was missing. And I made sure he knew which one was best able to help him out. That. Is what. I did. And that is what the Malakite saw. Now do you know what to do? Because I sure as fuck don't, except to pretend this never happened for as long as I can. Are you any _happier_ knowing?"

The last card had hit the table, and two pair aces high were staring at the excellent chance that another player held a full house. Zhune was not sure he could breathe anymore, except that the vessel kept up with that business while he stared at how much he'd bet and wondered if it was too late to fold.

Yes. Too late to fold. He had passed the stage where he could recover from a fold, and there was no walking away from this table. The game did not work that way. A man plays the cards he's dealt, and there was no choice left but to raise and bluff and hope the other player backed off first, even as the debt mounted up. Debt could be survived. Losing this hand could not be.

"I have no idea how you come up with these ideas," Zhune said, after too long a pause for any hope that he sounded--in control. Which he was. Still in control. "Fine. We'll fix it."

"There is no fixing it," Leo said. "There is no taking this back."

Zhune made an irritable gesture, because the kid was talking while he was trying to think. "We're Theft. We get away with worse than this. You know what they say about the Shepherds--"

"--which we're not part of, and we don't even know if that's true--"

"Shut up," Zhune said. "Listen. If no one ever finds out, we're fine. Or if they find out and we have good plausible excuse, we will still be fine."

"You will," Leo said. "That's what people in Stygia tell me. You're going to walk away from this, no matter what happens to me, so I don't even see why we need to talk about it."

"Don't be an idiot. You're my partner, not a babysitting project, and I'm not losing you to any stupid mistake. Even if it was yours." That summed it up, didn't it? There. Back on an even keel. (If only his partner had the right sort of vessel, and they could work out these matters in bed like they ought to.) "We can do damage control." He took out the phone he'd used to call Leo earlier, and tossed it in the Calabite's lap, because there was no knowing if the other one was still working. "Call your Seraph."

"What?"

"Call your Seraph, Leo. The Trader. The one who will know what's happening over there. The one who _doesn't want you dead_ , and will thus be helpful to us."

"You see," Leo said, "this is why I said you shouldn't--"

"Call," Zhune said. And it was in his voice and his face, because the Calabite snorted, and hunched in his shoulders, and dialed the phone.

"Yeah," Leo said, after a pause, "if you want to call me back, Zhune's listening in. Your call, really." He tapped the phone off. "I should get some of those books on tape. On CD, these days. Maybe we could stop having awkward conversations in the car if someone was narrating Jane Austen at us in these long silences."

"We could have awkward conversations in hotel rooms instead," Zhune said, "if you hadn't asked for the wrong sort of vessel last time."

"I didn't specify, so you can take that up with the Boss." The phone rang back. Leo sighed, and looked at Zhune. "This is a terrible idea. For the record. And this one isn't even my idea, so for future reference--"

"Answer it," Zhune said.

"--I will be saying I told you so," Leo muttered, and answered the phone. "Hey, Penny. Yeah. Right here in the car with me." He popped open the glove box, and pulled out insurance information, crumpling it in one hand. "Because he wants me to ask about Eder." The paper crumbled into fragments between his fingers. "No, I still don't, but he's insisting, and he gets really unreasonable about these things. So. How did it go?"

Zhune watched snow cover the windshield, and waited. He was very good at waiting.

"I'd say that's nice to hear, but it's sort of a problem on this end. What about the Soldier?" Leo dragged a pen out of the glovebox, and cracked it between his fingers. "Huh. Yeah. That might be a problem. Could you tell me--" He broke the pen again, resonance this time to break the plastic into impossibly fine dust. "No, I get it. We all have our limitations. I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."

"Find out," Zhune said, "who else knows."

"Like he's going to tell me that," Leo said. "--who else knows what happened. Besides--really? Oh. Huh. Yes, that _is_ a problem, and before you say it, I know I should've thought of that earlier. I was in a hurry at the time. You've heard the line, right? Promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

Zhune suppressed a sigh, and tried to feel more...Djinnish. Or, ha, zen. This was what happened when he pushed the kid a little too far, too fast. Juvenile antics. Or quoting poetry. He wasn't sure which was worse.

"I didn't mean that literally," Leo said, and frowned at the phone. "Well, I didn't. Sheer coincidence. That is not the point. Much as I'd love to catch up, since it's been so long since we last talked, there's sort of a problem we need to deal with. And by 'we' I mean--"

Zhune took the phone away. "Wait here," he told Leo. Because it was a little more polite than pointing to the seat and saying _Stay_ , no matter how much he meant that. Consideration for the delicate sensitivities of his partner was an important part of maintaining this relationship and its effectiveness.

He left the car, and walked away from the freeway, through the thin line of trees that did nothing to keep the snow from falling across him. "Hello, little snake," he said. "Are you listening?"

"I would rather you give the phone back," said the Seraph, Penny, what sort of name was that for an angel? For the Most Holy, nearest to God, and that was no sort of name at all for one. Must be some nickname. Trust Leo to use one of those.

"No," Zhune said. "Listen to me, because I want you to hear the truth of my words. Are you paying attention? I can wait until you are quite ready."

He heard the Game in his voice, for all that he'd never spoken for it in this language. This language had not been a dream of nonsense when he last spoke for them.

"I am listening," said the Seraph.

"If what my partner has done is discovered by anyone on our side," Zhune said, choosing his words with care, because one must always be careful with words around Seraphim--

(He remembered the three men who waited for the two of them at the top of the hill, and the way the tallest of the three looked at them. But the Lilim looked at him, and he knew she was smiling through the veil. "I'll take point," she murmured. "Watch my back." Because no one could trust Judgment, least of all the Game. Least of all when they were sent to work together.)

\--and he said, "then our Prince will destroy him. Perhaps he will be remade into another demon, but it will not be him. If I should discover that this information is traveling in such directions, I will turn him in myself first, because his death is then inevitable, and this will reduce the chances of mine following. And should this happen, he will let me do this. Because he was willing to walk through fire and water to save me once, and he will do it again. Do you understand me, little snake?"

"I understand that you believe this to be so," said the Seraph, and Zhune took a moment to enjoy the way that voice sounded. Yes. Be wary. _You should be._ "If you think I have any intention of telling--"

"Quiet," Zhune said. "The adults are talking. If you cannot read the habits of Princes, you can still read that I know their ways far better than you do, and I believe this to be so. Now. You acquired a Soldier with the Shedite, and its head of knowledge about Theft." He dug lines out in the snow with his boot, crossing over each other until the ground resembled the beginnings of a board of Go. But what sort of game could one play with no chance to it? Let the pieces slide on the uneven ground. Uncertainty threw the best-laid plans into chaos, and that was where Theft slipped in. "You have extracted information from that Soldier. Whatever you have extracted and choose to employ against us will be tracked back to that leak. People have already noticed that the human never returned. They will trace this back to who asked for its use. So I suggest to you, little snake, that if you are so fond of my partner as it seems, that you make sure that information is kept very quiet, and never, ever used."

"I do not control that," the Seraph said, and was that desperation building? One. Could. Hope. He waited for the next sentence to begin. "All I can do--"

"If you are not so fond of my partner," Zhune said, "you will let that information be used, and it will be traced back to him, and even if no one should ever find out what happened to that Shedite, he will be held responsible for that error of judgment. He will suffer for it, and we will know who was responsible. These are the rules. These are the patterns events can fall in. The one side or the other. Do you understand me?"

"It is not--"

"I am not asking for your opinion," Zhune said, and stomped a place on an intersection of two lines. Black. He stomped out another one. Black again, though it ought to be white, and one could only do so much with snow. "I am attempting to determine your level of comprehension. It would be best if that Soldier were found dead, soon. No one would be greatly surprised, and it would close off the potential for certain awkward questions. If all you want is a double agent, you foolish little snake, then you may at least be clever enough not to burn him out on his first success. Do you understand what I have said?"

"Yes," said the Seraph. "I understand what you believe."

"Good. If you can do nothing to stop the worst from happening, I will still hold you responsible. I have a long memory, and you would not be so very hard to find." Zhune ended the call, and stared up to the overcast night sky. The moon was trying to break through between the clouds, a blur veiled by nothing but water. It would fight its way free eventually. All clouds fled or melted with time. No one could stop the cycle.

The phone did not ring back, and after a few minutes he returned to the car.

A second car had pulled up to the side of the road, and Leo sat on the hood of the car, a cigarette burning between his fingers. "--and kick a few trees," he was saying to the woman standing near him. (Over sixty, sharp-eyed, different ethnicity than Leo's current vessel, also smoking, dressed properly for the weather in middle-class clothing, cheap watch, wallet kept in an inside pocket of the heavy coat. Probably not an angel. Certainly not worth taking as a Servant.) "But once he cools down and comes back with the phone, we'll just call for a tow."

Zhune shuffled his feet in the snow, like some human who didn't know how to walk up to two people quietly without them ever noticing, and handed the phone over to Leo. "Twenty minutes," he said, "but thanks for your concern, ma'am."

"So long as no one's dying in the snow," the human said, and shook hands with Leo before she went, exchanging the usual meaningless pleasantries. Zhune inserted a few of his own where appropriate. She stubbed out her cigarette in the snow, climbed back in her car, and left the two of them standing by the road.

"So what did you talk about?" Leo asked, and flicked away the remains of his own cigarette. "Weather, local restaurants, stock tips?"

"Only confirming what you already asked about," Zhune said. "Let's fence this crap before anyone tries to track it, and get a decent hotel room."

"Sure," Leo said, and put out his hand. "Though I don't know why we'd bother with a hotel room. Nothing to do but watch television and argue."

Zhune dropped the keys into the Calabite's waiting hand. "Better than driving much further in this mess. I know a fence near here. And after that it's either the hotel room or staying with one of my friends."

"Hotel it is," Leo said, and walked around to the driver's side, spinning the keys around one finger. "Your friends always get us in trouble."


	6. An Interlude, In Which Ethics Receive An Accounting

Penny could not drink his coffee. Not with the way his hands were shaking. He would have spilled the coffee down his shirt if he tried, and that would be. Unprofessional.

The Seneschal had said, "Tell me about it." So he had. Confession was good for the soul, was it not? That's what the Sword claimed, and certain portions of Judgment. Presumably they would know. They believed in this, heart and soul.

People believed many things which were not necessarily true. People said, _Tell me the truth,_ as if it were that simple, as if they were not speaking in opinion and supposition and belief. The truth did not predict the future. The truth dealt with the present and the past. He could sometimes see the truth of _is_ and _was_ , but never, ever of _will be_.

It was a sign of his own unsteadiness that he could not remember the name of the Malakite that entered the Seneschal's office. She was new to the Tether, one of the many Virtues who worked there for a few months before moving on to other positions. They had not spoken much. She had conducted the interrogation of the woman who had walked into the Tether with a Shedite in her head, and Penny...did not do interrogations. Not that kind. The Seneschal had found another Seraph to supervise that one, even as the Seneschal, Elohite down to the bone, had provided another sort of supervision in turn.

_We are all so considerate of each other,_ he thought, with a certain bitterness that he hoped would pass. _We all have our delicate sensibilities._

"Kill the Hellsworn," the Seneschal said to the Malakite, "and leave the body where it'll be found soon."

"I thought you would never ask," said the Malakite. "Want me to take care of any other chores while I'm out?"

"I'll text you," said the Elohite, and waved the Tether's killer on staff (though all of them might perform such a role, given sufficient need) out the door. She fixed her attention on Penny in a way that said she was contemplating the best way to prompt from him the reaction she thought useful.

It took some time.

"There is responsibility," the Elohite said, "and guilt, and instigating events, and the _feeling_ of guilt, and choice, and none of these are exactly the same. You are not responsible for the choices others make, least of all when you did not ask them to make these decisions. It may be useful to consider how your actions prompted others in turn, but we are not demons, to believe all the universe revolves around our choices. Others have as much will as we do, to respond to our actions as we do to theirs in turn."

The Elohite believed it. She would not have said so otherwise. Penny picked up his coffee, and drank. Lukewarm. "I did not mean," he said, "for him to do that. I would not have believed him capable of such an act, except as--part of a further course of action he has chosen not to follow." And he did not ask the question that came to mind.

Elohim were not, despite some rumors of Hell, mind-readers. But they could fake it convincingly at times. "I believe we have already turned a profit," said the Seneschal, "though I don't know if Marc would agree. Eder's return would be enough to justify all your work, and counter the accusations others have made. Your expenditures have been well within reasonable limits for a hobby, and now that a redemption has occurred, you show that your risks were not excessive. You have been proven _correct_ , Peniel."

"No," he said, knowing that they spoke in opinion and belief. Most arguments were such. "Chance and the choice of another have made me look as if I had some clever arrangement for planting a double agent inside Hell, and I never wanted that. I wanted to bring _him_ to us. Where he ought to be." His head ached, and he was not entirely sure what he meant by that last statement, except that he believed it personally. Did Malakim ever wonder about their own honor, and what others saw inside them?

"Would you rather Eder still be in Hell, and Leo here with us?" asked the Elohite.

Penny stared at the desk, and not at her. "That was a cruel question."

"A necessary one." Which was not disagreement.

"Yes," he said, and wondered where clarity might be found. Understanding eluded him, and he was not accustomed to this sensation. "I was not made as you were, Power."

"Precisely," she said, and he looked up to meet her eyes. Ever calm. (He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to serve an Elohite Archangel. Terrifying.) "You are not obliged to ignore your feelings, such as they are. Merely to be cautious that they not overwhelm you, and you, Peniel, are feeling quite overwhelmed. Finish reviewing those applications, then go back to Heaven. Stay there until you're called for."

"If anyone leaves a message--"

"Then we will tell you," the Elohite said, "and call you back." She raised one hand, and smiled at him wryly. "I promise. Go on."

He acquired a cup of hot coffee from the employee lounge, and returned to his office. Two hours of reviewing loan applications, and oh, he almost wished that this would infuriate him. Yet. It did not. The lies, born of desperation or hope or greed, were easy to pick out of what had been written down. He recommended approval on three quarters of those he reviewed, denial on most of those remaining, except for two of greater complexity. He set those aside and wrote up reports on the circumstances prompting the applications and their lies, with a recommendation of further investigation by appropriate agents.

Those two hours of work might save a few lives. In a few circumstances, there was the outside chance of destroying a life or two, usually those who deserved it. (Or did they? He was not a Malakite. He did not judge what was _deserved_. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Even Judgment would say this was true.) Someone might reach their destiny through the hand offered here, the one that said, _Grab on, we'll get you out of there._

Or perhaps no one would through this work. That was the difficulty in much work. Not knowing the future. One might only make plans and choices based on intention, statistics, carefully judged risks, what had been successful before and might be successful again.

Penny filed all paperwork back in the appropriate locations, and ascended the Tether.

He had a room in the Bazaar. Its window looked out over one of the lesser plazas, an dazzling stone mosaic covered with one-vendor stalls. He liked the complexity of the view, the tumult of a million souls (blessed and celestial) wheeling and dealing every hour in a hum of agreeable commerce. Bright sunlight on bright fountains, clouds of relievers, and all the home he had ever needed.

He coiled himself on his window perch, wings stretched out into the sun. Behind him, emails were waiting for answers. Friends would want--to be comforting, if they knew. He would let them know what it was safe to say, and what he could not say, they would be understanding about. Everyone who had done corporeal assignments understood there were times when even in Heaven, secrets kept people safe. (He did not know how Litheroy's angels could cope, and then he realized he didn't know which he meant, that Revelation should have to deal with secrets, or that Revelation should be unable to hold the safety of others above revealing the truth.)

Somewhere out there, an email had told him, somewhere in the Bazaar, in a quiet place with old friends who remembered the words, a Kyriotate was singing. With souls who remembered, and one of those souls had been waiting all this time for one particular angel to return. Had not given up hope, for all that statistics had been brought out to show that soul-death was likely, and if the worse alternative were true, a return still unlikely. Yet someone had waited. And how could he hold that against a lost Trader, sent back home?

Penny rested his head in his coils. No. He could not hold that against anyone, whatever his preferences were. He did not wish, exactly, for _that and not this_. He wished for _this and that, both at once_. He was true enough to himself to acknowledge what he wanted, not so selfish to cast blame where it was not deserved.

The Djinn had said, "We will know who was responsible." Yes. Responsibility was not a singular thing. The Shedite who made a choice, the Calabite who pushed it to do so, the Mercurian who took what was broken up in his arms and made it whole again, the Seraph who gave someone reason to believe a Tether might be welcoming, perhaps even the Lilim who had pointed two demons towards each other in Shal-Mari, well. All of them might be held responsible for choices made along the way. (The Djinn who would not, he was certain, turn his partner in, who did not believe it even as he thought he believed it, and while that did not tell the future, that told Penny something useful.) All sorts of people were responsible, for blame or credit as one chose to view it.

Other people had choices yet to make. All he could do from his side was wait.

And perhaps speak with a few friends. That would make the waiting go faster.


	7. In Which We Discuss Literature

Checkout time has come and gone, and Zhune's disappeared from the room twice, so I guess we're staying another day. Which is only fair, when we didn't set up camp in here until five in the morning. Too much haggling with the fence, who might as well have been a Lilim for the deals she wanted to drive over every petty talisman in the stack, and we're still holding onto that earring because none of the three of us can figure out what it does. With my luck, it's some personal possession of the Malakite, and she's going to show up banging on the door to try to talk to me again.

Well, if she does, Zhune can rip her head off, and I can go back to what I'm currently doing, which is sitting on the floor between the two beds and getting drunk.

I lie. What I'm doing is sitting on the floor of a stupidly expensive hotel room, between two beds covered in hideous bedspreads that are supposed to display the fine taste of the room's current guest, tossing a knife in the air and catching it again. The blade stops safe between my fingers every time it comes back down, and I'm not even leaving any fingerprints on the shiny metal. I'm already half drunk, courtesy of the six-pack of beer that Zhune brought back on the first trip, but that's wearing off and I'm going to need another soon if I want to keep this buzz.

"If you keep doing that," Zhune says, "you're going to cut yourself." He has a bottle of wine from room service, and a Tom Clancy novel that I'm sure I've caught him reading before. Sprawled out in the chair at the room's desk like, I don't know, a Balseraph or a Djinn, or both at once, with the way he sits. He is not anything like a Balseraph, except in the vessels he keeps getting.

I flip the knife in the air, and catch it again. Every time. "If you didn't want me playing with it, you shouldn't have given it to me."

He flips a page, watching me narrowly over the top of the book. Used to be he'd pretend a lot harder not to notice what I was up to, but we're both a little raw-edged lately. This week. No point in the pretense when we both know some things, right? "I thought you had better sense. Did you imprint on Habbalah at an early age?"

I toss the knife in the air, and stick it in the ceiling. Nice throw, if I say so myself. "Yes, but I got over it. If you're going to be an asshole all day long--"

"If you mean to keep injuring yourself," he says, talking right over me, "I'd rather know ahead of time, so that I can keep enough Essence on hand to fix the problem when you do it inconveniently. Or maybe you could just _schedule_ your avoidable damage, and I won't plan any jobs on those days."

"I need to know," I say carefully, because he still doesn't get this, "how much fire will hurt."

"Or you could avoid it. As you were told."

I climb to my feet, and wobble. Only a little. I'm going to need more beer. "I'm not going to--play with fire. But sometimes it'll come after me, and I have to know." I step up onto the bed, and extract my knife from the ceiling. "Nothing Habbalite about it. If there is one thing I'm ever _sure_ of in this world, it's my own Band. No matter what anyone says."

Zhune lets his book close over a thumb, and contemplates me in a way that would probably turn into arguments and sex--not necessarily in that order--if I still had the female vessel, but since I don't, what he says is, "What did someone say?"

"Nothing." I slide the knife up my sleeve, and it's tucked away there, waiting to be called for, as if I had a sheath waiting for it. Nice trick.

"You're a lousy liar when you're drunk," he says. "Someone got in your head when you were in Shal-Mari, and not only that Punisher. Tell me about it."

"Because it went so well in the car when I told you anything."

"You got to talk to your snake, didn't you?" He looks down at me archly, and I don't even know how he does that. Looking down at me when he's sitting, and I'm standing over here. "Who will be putting effort into keeping the Game, and other more dangerous people, from asking unfortunate questions about that missing Shedite. You could say thank you."

"I'm pretty sure he'd do that without you yelling at him," I say, and sit down at the edge of the bed, wondering... I don't know. Wondering what I want, if my partner's going to insist on hiding out here for another day. Maybe we're waiting for a call from one of his friends about some new job. He never tells me anything. "How about a thank you for pulling you out of Shal-Mari?"

"I did not yell at the Seraph. I explained matters clearly so that there would be no confusion as to everyone's responsibilities in the matter," Zhune says. "As for Shal-Mari, I would have left on my own. Eventually. Do you think that's the first time someone tried to kidnap me?"

"No, but it may be one of the more _successful_ attempts, and I got bored with waiting for you to get off your ass and escape. So I fixed that for you." I take a lighter from my pocket, and flick it on. Off. On. "Maybe we're both really good at giving help that's not needed."

"At least I don't go into debt, when I do that," Zhune says. "What happened in Shal-Mari?"

"Besides what you saw?" I pull out my pack of cigarettes, and light one up. Watching it ash onto the floor is not as good as another six bottles of beer, but it'll leave me more coherent and with less need to run to the bathroom periodically. "I told you already. Talked to some Lilim, met up with the most pointless fan club Hell has ever created, got their help tracking you down, and you were there for the rest."

Zhune tosses his book at my head. I duck out of the way, and even half-drunk that's not about to connect. "Stop weaseling," he says. "Tell me anything that's messing with your head, and I'll buy you more beer."

"So long as it's not crap beer. And it's not messing with my head." It's not. The trip to Shal-Mari was a lot less than fun, but I've been through worse torture a hundred times, dealt with stranger situations, had weirder conversations. "Some Lilim told me that my Forces got recycled from the guy who worked for my first supervisor before me. Another Lilim. Which means nothing, whatever she thought, and I don't think she even believed it was significant. It was just an excuse to charge the exorbitant price she had in mind for giving me a useful lead."

"Some Lilim," Zhune says, and I can't figure out what that tone means. It's a Djinn tone, which means it means nothing or anything. He doesn't use it much.

"Yeah. Someone in, I don't know, whatever Freedom has for an archive and information-bartering service. She never gave me a name." I tap ash onto the carpet, and watch the white flakes sift down between the fabric next to my boot. Maybe I should take my shoes off. "You know, three Words in, I can see some legitimate argument that I might be a little confused in that area. Bad habits from Fire that need breaking, yeah, I can see why the Boss might. Find that a problem. Being a Calabite, on the other hand, is something I'm good at. All the way through." And if I were ever stupid enough to want to run to Heaven, I'd still remember that, and stay where I am. They don't take my kind there.

Zhune is just looking at me, like I don't know what. I do not like how often the _I don't know_ shows up in my thoughts today, this week, the refrain of uncertainty when I could use a better foundation right now.

I pick up his book from the bedspread, and toss it back to him. (Of course he catches it.) "If you read any decent literature, you'd have seen the classic Calabite poem. Yeats? Ringing any bells? No? Okay. It doesn't start like this, but this is the important part. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

"You are too drunk already," Zhune says, "or not drunk enough, if you're quoting poetry at me."

"You did promise me more beer," I say, and he shrugs, leaves the room. I'm not sure how long he's going to be gone.

I quoted those same lines to Penny, once. I was drunk then too, so Zhune may have a point. And the Seraph said, "Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the Second Coming is at hand." But he stopped there, so I think he either missed the point of the poem, or he was making a point of his own.

There's a cell phone in my jacket pocket, but I should know better by now. So I hang the jacket over the back of a chair, move the knife to a pocket of my pants, and rip the pages out of Zhune's book one by one, dissolving each in turn.

He gets back before I catch up to his bookmark, so I trade him the book in exchange for the six-pack. Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA. "I can't tell if this means you really love me, or if you're making a pointed commentary on how I've been acting."

"Stop destroying my books, Leo."

"So I'm going to take it as meaning both. That's both very sweet of you, and an asshole move." I settle down on the floor between the beds, since I dislike the bedspreads too much to want to sit on them, and resonate the cap off the first bottle. "You should read better literature. I wouldn't destroy your books if you bought good ones. Besides, you can find those anywhere. You can find them in _grocery stores_. If you can buy it in a grocery store, it's not real literature."

"And yet," Zhune says, "I continue not to care what you think of my reading habits." He sits backwards on the chair, chin resting on arm resting on the back of the chair, and it is unfair how good he can make that look. "If I pour enough beer into you, will you shut up?"

I tilt the bottle back and drink until it hurts. "...maybe. Does that usually work?"

He lifts a hand into the air, and tilts it slowly back and forth. "How much debt did you go into? Total."

"One Geas. One Shedite. One little Calabite shoved away from his master, and I hope he's a fast runner, because he'll regret every word he told me if Unathi catches him." I can finish the bottle in three goes. That's a horrible thing to do to a good beer. Fortunately, there are five more bottles waiting for me, and I can treat them with more respect. "So that's two down and one to go, not counting any consequences for the above."

"A high price."

"I don't know. Depends on whether or not the Geas gets me killed." I open the second bottle. A few more minutes and the buzz will start up again, and if I keep going fast enough, well. Demons may not need to sleep, but we can still pass out. "Don't you think that's funny? People can escape Demon Princes, at least for a while. Break a Heart and run, and you can escape their dissonance conditions. But any nine-Force Lilim who gets the setup worked out right can stick you with a Geas that'll just. Keep. Hitting you. Until it's put to rest. Sometimes I'm amazed the Princes let Lilith keep making them. Or make any that aren't bound to them."

"One does wonder," Zhune says, which is such a non-comment that he must have a strong opinion on this, and one he's not willing to share to me. Which I might go poking at another night--morning, what time is it anyway? Noon? One o'clock?--but if he's being this much of an asshole lately, let's not push that far. No matter how much I want to.

So I drink a second beer, and feel the first one kick in on top of what was already circulating through my bloodstream, and wonder if I ought to tell Zhune what that Geas was about. But he hasn't asked. And if he asks I'll probably talk around it until he presses, because I am being a contrary bastard this week, no two ways about it. It's probably not one of my more endearing traits.

That's okay. Zhune doesn't care if I'm endearing or not, especially in this vessel, and he doesn't let me get too attached to anyone else, and I can fake nice-and-polite just fine to humans when it matters. And Penny likes me no matter what, which makes no sense at all, but there you have it.

At beer number three, I realize that Zhune isn't really reading his book, what's left of it, just pretending to. Which means he's sitting there watching me get drunk. Can't be very exciting. Poor Djinn. He's not Djinn enough to actually want long stretches of boredom, but he's Djinn enough not to admit it. "Hey," I say, "Zhune. Want me to tell you a story?"

He gives me the most dubious look. It's hilarious. "Will it explain why you've been making poor life choices of late?"

"Of late? C'mon, you know my history. I've been making poor life choices for _years_. Maybe for the entirety of my actual life, except I didn't get to make a lot of choices for the first few years. Which brings us back to the Geas, which we're not talking about yet." Shit. I said that part out loud. I should finish this beer, and stop there, until it starts to wear off. "I was going to tell you a story."

"If you insist," Zhune says. "Will there be firefights, banter, and stylish escapes?"

"None of the above." I am almost at the end of the third bottle. I'll stop here. I was already nearly drunk before I started on these six.

"You tell the worst stories, Leo."

"No, you'll like this one. It explains everything." I point at him with the empty bottle. "Shut up and listen. I read this one in a college class on utopias. Great discussion there, even from some of my classmates. They were a bunch of idiot humans, but some of them cared enough to say smart things, and the professor was good. So good I went and did research to make sure she wasn't actually one of theirs, or one of ours, but as far as I could ever tell, ordinary human." I have lost my train of thought. And this bottle won't dissolve in my grasp, because I'm having trouble concentrating. I roll it under the bed, and pull out my knife. "You're following?"

"Not particularly," Zhune says, but he's looking at me like I'm the only person who matters. Good enough. Fucking Djinn, pretending that they don't care, but I _know_ he does, taking away that phone and being an asshole to Penny was enough to show that if I hadn't known already.

"Whatever. So we read this story. 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,' I don't remember who wrote it. Some human. And it's about this utopia, this being the theme of the class. Everyone's happy, upstairs. Festivals and drugs and sex and, I don't know, some mythical version of rock and roll, maybe. There was definitely music in there. The point is, they are all _happy_. Every single one of them."

"Not a very exciting story so far," Zhune says.

"No, at this point you're reading it and wondering, so what? This isn't even telling us how to get there. It just is. Poorly written utopia. But that's when you go back downstairs." I take the cap off the fourth bottle. If I don't drink these soon, they'll go warm. "Hey, would you stick these two in the fridge?"

Zhune leaves the chair to pick up the last two bottles. He shoves them into the fridge, I can only hear the clinking and can't see, but that's okay. I know what Zhune does even when I can't see him. He's very predictable in his own way, and I can work with that. "So what's downstairs?"

"There's this kid. Some... I don't know, it doesn't say how anyone picked him. Maybe at random. Some kid in a closet. With a broom. When they open the door they shout at him, or they hit him, and it doesn't have a _point_. It's just what you do. Because there's this kid in the closet, waiting for that door to open, and waiting to see someone because he never sees anyone else, and waiting for it to hurt again." I don't drink this bottle. I look down into it and I don't see anything inside but liquid, nothing there but. I don't know. It's like a metaphor. It's definitely a simile.

"Why?" Zhune asks.

"That's the point. There is no why. It's how it works. Everything up above, everyone else being happy, depends on this kid, stuck in that closet. So I'm reading this in class, and people are talking about responsibility and prices and what things are worth, what utopia is worth paying, and I realize, I look around and I realize, every single one of them looks at this story and thinks, I'm one of the people upstairs. Not a one of them thinks, I'm the kid in the closet." I take a long sip of beer, and it's still cold. Maybe I am drinking these too fast. "Do you get it?"

"No, Leo," Zhune says, and he sits down on the edge of the bed. Looking down at me. I know where this would go if I were in the other vessel, but that one's gone, and he's going to have to cope. He will cope. "What does it mean?"

"That's Heaven," I say, though I think he's just humoring me, because it's obvious. "All the people upstairs. And the closet, the people who shove that kid in the closet, that's Hell. That's how it has to work. They can't have the parties and the music without that kid down there. They need to know _someone_ is in there, or it won't work. Nobody talks about Heaven before the Fall, because it didn't matter. It wasn't interesting. It wasn't _important_ except as a place to store angels between trips to Earth. Not until there was something else to not be."

"And what about the people who walk away?" he asks, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, looking down at me like I don't know what. "As the title said."

"I tried that, Zhune. It didn't work. The Boss didn't let it work. There's no _and now I just walk away_ because the whole system is invested in making sure there's an upstairs and a downstairs, the party and the closet, and there is no walking away." I have finished this beer too fast. I'll end up throwing up in the absurdly expensive toilet in another half hour if I drink any more. "So. That's the story. That's the one that explained everything, once I read it."

"What's the Geas?" Zhune asks. He's looking at me. I can't lie to him properly when I look him in the eye.

"I need to get revenge. On the first one. The Habbalite that had that stupid Lilim, he must've been _stupid_ if he tried to run away, disassembled and made into me. The one I worked for first. At some point that Lilim calls in the Geas, and I need to go figure out what revenge even is, to suit that kind of thing. I don't know. Not death. Making her pay for what she did. Making her hurt." I can't see anything, because my head's in my hands, and the world is spinning around me even when I don't look at it. "Maybe it's just an excuse to get me killed off. But I needed to get you out of there, because if I didn't get you back I was going to do something stupid."

"More stupid," Zhune says. Asshole.

"Yeah. More stupid."

"Like what?"

"Like what do you _think_ ," I say. "What do you think I'd do if it weren't for you? Something. Fucking. Stupid."

"Some day," Zhune says, "you will hit the wrong combination of temptation and inebriation, and you will end up dead."

"Yeah," I say, "but I only tried to kiss him once, and he didn't hold it against me. Besides, I never expected to live very long. Someone's got to keep the average demonic life expectancy down, with all these Princes skewing the results."

Zhune doesn't say anything, and I don't know what he even wants, so I get up and make my way over to the fridge without falling over once, and I get out another beer.

"Look on the bright side," I say, with my back to him, because I cannot lie to him when I look him in the eyes. "You don't have to worry about ditching me like you did Henry, because I'll write myself out of the picture one of these days, and you can try out another partner. Do you want this last beer?"

"No," Zhune says.

"And you don't want to fuck, because you're just as hung up on details of whose pants you get in as I am, even if it's in a different way, so I guess that means I keep drinking until I pass out." I pull both beers out of the fridge. That didn't last for long. "What you should really do--"

 _Leo. Remember me? Time to talk details._ The address drops into my head, and Essence to top me off, after last night's Song.

"What is it?" Zhune asks. He's standing right behind me, and I think I might've shoved a knife in him from that twitch if he weren't fast enough to move out of the way, grab my wrist, slip it out of my hand. "You stopped, and that isn't the sort of stopping you do when you're so drunk you can't finish your own sentences."

"Song of Tongues," I say, and there's a spot on my upper left arm that's itching furiously. "Thought I'd have a longer deadline, but that's the call. Time for me to go pay the piper. You can stay behind and catch up with me later, if you want."

"Don't be stupid," Zhune says. "Even I can drive better than you can in this condition."

So he's coming along.

Good.

I hope this doesn't get either of us killed. What a waste that would be.


	8. A Flashback, In Which, Depending On Your Views On The Continuity And Nature Of The Soul, I Might Or Might Not Appear

"If you wanted to get to the corporeal," Syntyche said, "you could have told me. I could have worked something out." She spoke calmly because anger was not something to spend on subordinates or at whim. It was a resource to deploy after thorough consideration and sufficient time to aim it where it would hurt.

"And I could have paid you for it, over and over again," Levon said. He sat in front of her, shoulders hunched in, as if he knew he had done something wrong. As well he ought. "You would have charged me for the training, the chance, the second chance when the first one somehow didn't pay off because I didn't do it _quite right_ , the introduction to someone who could introduce me to someone else who could charge me for the vessel and there'd be your fee on top of that--"

He hushed when she put up a hand.

"You should have come to me first," Syntyche said. "Don't I deserve that by now? After all I've done for you? After all the time you've spent with me?"

"All my life," Levon said, and gave her a crooked smile. He tried to straighten up in the chair, as if he were adult, as if he were not still a _child_ who didn't know enough to walk safely outside the Guildhouse. "I won't deny that you've given me excellent skills in a few areas, even if you charged me for the training. How else would I have gotten a contract offer? It's a reasonable contract. I've read it through."

"You still owe me," Syntyche said.

He nodded to this, and held up a wrist decorated in thin bangles, touched the rings piercing one ear. "If you tell me not to sign the contract, I can't. That'll last a day. Or a week. You can tell me over and over again, and I'll obey, every time. Until you run out. Is that how you want to use those debts?"

She could have. She could have hooked him again, bound him again, found ways to keep him in debt forever. That was what their Mother had taught her, so why not? Wouldn't that be fair?

In his eyes, he wanted a type of freedom she had no way of giving him. Not the simple freedoms she gave people every day, freedom from this enemy or that rule or this petty restriction that could be so easily destroyed, removed, delayed, confused. He wanted freedom of movement, freedom from debt, freedom from obligation. Freedom to deal without worry or compulsion.

Well, what sort of freedom was that? It didn't exist. Of course she couldn't give him for that. You could never hook someone for needing _No more debts_ , it was like that thought experiment with the immovable object and irresistible force. Some things could not exist together in the same universe.

"Fine," she said. "Go. Waste your life and skills and every ounce of potential you have left on this contract. Don't come crying back to me for help when it turns out poorly."

"I swear by my nature," he said, raising his hand, "that I will not."

The Geas formed there.

And she never saw him again.


	9. In Which We Have A Difference Of Opinion

This is how I can tell Zhune is upset about this whole situation: he's acting like an actual Djinn, instead of being stylish and charming, even though we're meeting a Lilim of Freedom, who is, last I checked, someone we're supposed to be on very good terms with. Whether he's upset because I'm geased into this and dragging him along (which was his own damn choice, he could've gone to chase some other job while I was busy), or because this isn't someone he knew before I did, or just because he doesn't like this particular Lilim in particular, I don't know. And I don't much care. I don't need him to be happy about any of this. Just to watch my back.

Which is not greatly required at the moment. This Lilim's studio apartment has a security system that'd take me almost a full minute to crack, hardwood floors, and a balcony that says he's being bankrolled by someone with cash to spare. High ceilings with exposed beams, floor to ceiling windows letting in the clear, cold sunlight of a cloudless January afternoon, and the view of the river is spectacular. If I lived the kind of life where I was allowed to stay in one place for more than three days at a time--

\--okay, I wouldn't have an apartment like this, because I never got jobs that paid that well, and being a Calabite means it'd all end up covered in broken things pretty fast. But I can admire it. Or wish I had more friends with places like this to crash. Ash (Role name or true, I'm not sure, I'd believe either) has made us mimosas and sworn he's not hooking anyone for it, and now he and I are out on the balcony at a wrought iron table, admiring the view, while Zhune sits inside on the couch and pretends he's not listening. The open balcony door must be doing horrible things to the heating bills, but that's not _my_ problem.

"It's amazing," Ash says, glass held between three fingers, and he stares out at the gulls flying over the river like he's not even worried about Kyriotate spies. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"A few times," I say. If he's in no hurry to give me the details, I'm in no rush to press. "First time on the corporeal?"

"Not exactly. I did a few jobs before, but...nothing outside, exactly. Just filing work in basements, message carrying, that kind of cheap crap. Nothing like this. Look at that sky. It goes all the way up." For all his hipster affectations in clothing, the chunky glasses and thin scarf (he must be freezing) and skinny jeans and, seriously, he must be _freezing_ out here in that clothing, I'm chilly and I've got a decent jacket on, he's wide-eyed and smiling like he's ready to appreciate this all without the slightest trace of irony. "No wonder everyone wants to get down here so badly. They could've charged me three times as much for this vessel, and it'd still be worth it."

It's not a bad vessel, though I can't tell by looking how tough it is. Probably not very; most free Lilim can't afford to pay that much for durability. But it's cute, in a very human way. Almost exactly the same appearance as Ash had back at the information desk in Shal-Mari, sans horns and a lot of green tinting. He's more the shade of milk coffee here, and with a decent Role I bet he could run out and hook a lot of people who'd never peg him for a demon.

I hope the kid has better luck on that point than I did.

"I wouldn't recommend taking on more debt than necessary," I say, and drink my mimosa. Not the sort of thing I usually pick, but it's not my apartment. "Speaking of which, how can you afford this place?"

"Syn--ah, my boss has had thousands of years to build up the resources. And she says that if I'm going to start building up a portfolio on Earth, I'll get higher-quality investments with a good base to work from. I'm stuck doing pretty much whatever she tells me to for _years_ , but it's worth it." His gaze flicks over to Zhune inside, then to me. "Not that there's anything wrong with binding to a Word, if it works for you."

"You say that like most people have a choice." Bad path to take this conversation down, so I smile back at him, amiable and nothing sharp about my expression, like I'm making friends with some human who will that way be a little less inclined to think suspiciously of me when people come asking about who they saw in the neighborhood at the time of that burglary. Forget what they say about Impudites; Lilim are the closest demons come to being human. You can tell because Impudites are way more obsessive about human things than actual humans are. "Better coffee here than in Shal-Mari, isn't there?"

"Is there _ever_." He smiles back at me. "So, you want to hear about the job?"

"That's what I'm here for, Ash."

"You know, I read some of your file," he says, while he picks up the shoebox that's been sitting on the balcony floor between us all this time, which I have been pretending not to notice. "Not all of it, because there's an awful lot in there that no one gets to see without paying more, but still. You've done some impressive stuff. I think you'll be fine with this job. And if you can pull this off in style, the next time we need someone like you to do our work, you'd get paid for it."

"I like getting paid," I say. "It makes my partner happier." And he can very well cope with not getting anything out of this, because getting him away from that Habbalite was payment for this job. I just got the loan up front. "Speaking of which, we'd better go talk where he can hear if this is the briefing."

"Yeah, sure," Ash says. He picks up our drinks, and slides the balcony door shut with his heel once we're both inside. "Do you want the good news first, or the really good news?"

I flop onto the couch on the opposite side from Zhune, and accept my mimosa back. "Thanks. How about we start with the bad news, and work our way up?"

Ash sits in the middle of the coffee table, one leg up and his other hooked over it. "You already know the bad news, Leo. This Habbie you're going after is dangerous everywhere but the corporeal, and she doesn't _go_ to the corporeal. Even--we couldn't work it out to get her there."

"If you want me to go find here in Sheol, there is no such thing as good news coming next," I say, and try not to picture that too hard. What would Valefor _do_ to me if I walk into the land of fire after he swapped my Discord around? (I don't even like thinking about the swap. It's like having a fundamental part of me change, and I am tired of my nature changing without my say-so.) I've no idea how forgiving he is about "a Geas made me do it," though...we are supposed to be best friends with Freedom. Maybe he'd understand. Assuming I made it back out to explain, which is unlikely.

"No, no, she _said_ she'd arrange matters, right? So we did." He's smug as a Balseraph and bouncy as an Ofanite. It's a weird combination. "So here's the good news: we set things up so that she'd leave Sheol."

Chances of my not dying horribly in attempting to clear this Geas: rising steadily. And the perky kid Lilim is waiting so expectantly, I go ahead and give him the opening. "What's the really good news?"

He hands me the shoebox. "You target is in the Far Marches. She ought to be there for at least two weeks, since that's when the auction we gave her a lead on takes place, and she needs all the time she can get to take out the competition so that she can win it."

I crack open the box. A tattered paperback copy of _Return to Oz_ , a folded sheet of paper, and a handful of cheap rings that I suspect are dinky talismans useful for trading my way through the Marches. "Okay," I say, and close the box. "You were right. That's good news."

"Not so good as the corporeal," Zhune says.

"According to our files, she hasn't spent longer than two hours on the corporeal at a stretch in the last three hundred years," Ash says, "and she's never left the premises of a Fire Tether during that time, so if you think you have a good idea for setting that up, by all means. Be our guest." He rolls his eyes, and leans back on his hands. "Come on, it's the Marches. Who _wouldn't_ love to go there? I'd come along on this trip if I could."

"Three's a crowd, Ash." I pass the box to Zhune. "Looks like we're going to Kansas."

"There's no rush," Ash says. "Two weeks. Plenty of time. We called you as soon as we had confirmation that she set out. When you were in the Marches, did you get up to all sorts of exciting things? Travel around a lot?"

"Not really," I say, and finish off my mimosa. Too damn sweet, but I'm not going to hurt the Lilim's feelings by rejecting an explicitly free anything. I don't know why he's so invested in all this--maybe it's only that he hasn't gotten to play spy games before--but I've always liked working with Freedom before, and it could be handy to make a few contacts that aren't old friends of Zhune.

Oh. No wonder he's being so Djinnish. He doesn't like me making friends. It's almost enough to make me offer to take the kid along, but I was telling the truth. A third unknown quantity tagging along would just get in our way.

"Stop by again some time if you want to do business," Ash says, and he's quick enough on the uptake to escort us to the door instead of pressing the issue. Then in the doorway he says, "Actually, I've got one more thing for you, if you give me just a minute--"

I swap a glance with Zhune, who has gone so Djinn-neutral in expression I think he's about to do something unfortunate to this Lilim if I don't separate them soon. "I'll be right down," I tell him, and he shrugs, stalks away to wait in the car and, I don't know, contemplate how he's going to irritate me to compensate for this.

That leaves me alone in the apartment with Ash, who tilts his head to one side and stares at me, flipping one end of his scarf back and forth between his fingers.

"No hooks," I say.

"Yes, that's what I said." He waves off the matter with a flick of his fingers. "It's only. You know. It never works out. That's what everyone tells me. You can look at a Djinn and know exactly what it wants, but it'll never make that explicit. Lay a dozen Geases on them for giving them exactly what they wanted, and they'll still deny they wanted anything you gave them. Every time."

"Did I ask for relationship advice?"

"No," Ash says, "and you don't Need it either, but you want something he's not going to give you. So I thought I'd tell you that much for free, since other people told me for free before."

Of all the conversations I wanted to have today, this is _low_ on the list. Still somewhere above the one that starts with _What happened to that Shedite?_ , but still. "Do you make a habit out of telling people what they really want, Ash?"

"Not usually. Most of the time I either fill the request if it's simple or relevant to my job, and charge for that, or I mark it down on their file. We track these things, when we can get the information." He shrugs, with a little awkward smile. "You can tell a lot about a person over time from just...paying attention to what they want. Especially the stuff they want a lot."

"And this is going in my file?"

"It's already there," Ash says. "There's a lot in there that I wasn't cleared to read, but that's...in there already." And there must be something on my face, because he says quickly, "This stuff doesn't come up much. Most people who want files on someone in particular go to the Game, or Fate, not us. The records are more for internal reference or anything, and it's expensive to get access."

"Well," I say. "That'll sure help me sleep better at night. Do you have an excuse handy for why you called me back in, when I head down there?"

"Not really." He crosses his arms, and I can read that he's uncomfortable, clear across the way he stands and the way he looks away from me, but I can't work out why. Lilim don't make a lot of sense, sometimes. Exactly like humans, but with a completely different social context. "Any ideas?"

"Sure," I say. "Can you tell me what you read on my partner?"

He chews the corner of his lip. "You really want to know?"

"How much is going to cost me?"

"One hour, to be called in later. That's, you know, nothing much. 'Pick up a case of wine for me while you're on the way over' level of stuff." And he looks so damn hopeful about it, like he expects I'll live through all this madness and come right back to him one of these days with that drink order.

"Deal," I say, and it's not the sensation of the Geas setting in with full visual like it is back in Hell. Just that vague feeling that, okay, there's a little more weight on my soul than before. "What did you see?"

Ash counts these off on his fingers. "He wants to keep you safe. He wants you to have a female vessel again. He wants a game of--I don't even know what it is, some game he used to play, I could maybe recognize it if I saw it in front of me, but I didn't get the word for it." He hesitates a moment, and glances at the door, as if there might be an annoyed Djinn ready to come back through it. "And he wants me to stay away from you. Or maybe the other way around. Sometimes it comes to about the same thing, in a Need. The 'I don't want' ones can be hard to parse."

"Sounds like Zhune." Nothing in there is a surprise. Even if he sure as fuck won't ever admit to the first one. "How strong?"

"I gave them in descending order, except for the last one, which rates just above the game of whatever it was."

Nothing in there is a surprise, and even so. It's nice to know.

Not that I'm going to tell Zhune I asked, because I like this Lilim enough that I'd rather he not end up mysteriously Force-stripped in some incident that can't possibly be traced back to my partner. "I'll see you around some other time," I say, and open the door. "Call if you have work. Something daring and unusual, that keeps him happier."

"Would not have guessed," Ash says, and waves goodbye as I walk through the hall of this building full of absurdly expensive condos.

Down at the car, I toss the shoebox in the back, and take the driver's seat. "Anywhere you want to stop before Kansas?"

"We ought to swap cars again," Zhune says. "What's in Kansas?"

"An ethereal Tether where the Seneschal will let me use it, and take along friends if I pay through the nose. If you have any hidden caches of talismans, now would be a good time to pull them out. I wish we hadn't sold off all that junk from Fire already." I pull out into the street, careful and slow while the late afternoon sun is melting slush across the asphalt. "If we can figure out a way to swipe something exciting while we're in the Marches, maybe we can clear this Geas and impress the Boss at the same time."

"We're Theft," he says. "Why would we go to the Marches?"

"I don't know, because it's _fun_? Because ethereals cut interesting deals? Because the scenery's nice? Because it's an unexpected place to hide when someone's on your tail? Come on, Zhune, why would we not go to the Marches?" I have not felt this good in days. Go to the Marches for a while and forget _entirely_ about anything going on back in Hell, back on the corporeal. I like this plan. The Marches always treated me right.

"Because most of what exists there isn't real and can't be brought back," he says. "Because we don't care about ethereals enough to steal from them. You don't make Tethers out of harassing figments of humanity's imagination."

"It's not just humanity's imagination. Some things that aren't humans dream, too. There's--" Oh. I flash him a grin sideways, and pull onto the freeway onramp. "You've never been. To the Marches. Never?"

"There has never been a reason," Zhune says, with a hint of ice to his voice. "We'll get this taken care of, and then return to interesting work."

"Sure," I say. I can be gracious. "Relax, Zhune. If it doesn't kill us, this is going to be _fun_."


	10. In Which Home Is Not Where The Heart Is

"The last time," the Seneschal says to me, arms crossed tightly over her chest, "you brought an angel through the Tether. Through _my_ Tether."

At least she finally let us into the house. I think she might've let me stand on the porch banging on the door forever if she weren't just a _little_ bit worried about me burning the place down out of spite. Which I wouldn't, because I need her help more than I need that kind of satisfaction, but she knows I'm a Calabite. So maybe we'll not clarify the range of possibilities for my next few actions until we've worked past this little snag.

"Yes, and that worked out fine, didn't it? He paid in full, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't been back here. He hasn't sent anyone else over to harass you, has he? Because if he did, I can call him up and yell at him about that." My expression is all sympathy and charm, because if we try intimidation to get through here, we're never going to be able to use this Tether to get back home. Do I want to try to escape the Marches through Beleth's Tower? How about _no_. Do I want to just end up stuck there forever?

...well. What an interesting thought. But. Probably not. If nothing else, the Boss might get annoyed.

"An angel," the Seneschal says. She points to Zhune. "How do I know this one isn't an angel?"

"You'll be able to tell as soon as we drop vessels," I point out, "and I swear he's not." Maybe life would be a little easier if I _were_ a Lilim. What's the point of keeping my promises if no one believes me when I make them? Penny would have strong opinions on that, but as those would be the opinions of a Seraph and Trader, not ones relevant to my life. "I want to exit the same way, so it's in my best interest to keep you happy, isn't it? And last time, the gatekeeper didn't ask. This time, I'm telling you right out who everyone is."

"Fine," she says. "All the Essence you have on you, and everything from him. I don't trust you further than that."

Now, could I claim Zhune's got seven Forces and pass off that much? Yes, I could. We could probably even afford this absurd price without too much danger, given two weeks of time in the Marches to recharge and get in place. But I'd rather not give up our emergency funds first. The whole point of hauling a backpack full of cheap talismans along was so that we'd have other ways to bargain before dipping into the reserves that we can carry with us.

So I dig into that backpack, which is full of some of the weirdest junk I've seen in a while--why anyone would make some of these talismans, I can't imagine, but there's a reason they were in one of Zhune's caches and not long ago sold off--and pull out a book that's not any sort of artifact, but may well be my ticket through here at non-exorbitant rates. "We could also offer the car outside, if you need something with four-wheel drive for this kind of snow."

"I have people to drive," the Seneschal says. "They have their own cars. That doesn't look like Essence to me."

"No," I say. "Call it an apology for last time."

She flips delicately through the book. It's a cheap paperback, and hasn't aged well. Yellowed pages, some of them dogeared and losing corners. The spine's broken and a few of the pages have been re-attached with scotch tape.

"Three and three," she says, not looking up from the book. It lies open to whatever page it was read to most often, a scrap of paper marking that spot. "The same on return. If you're lying to me this time..."

"I'm not," I say. I drop three Essence into the reliquary that sits in the middle of the kitchen floor, wait for Zhune to do the same at my look. Then I drop my vessel (it's so _easy_ , it worries me, like it could just about fall off at any moment), and ascend the Tether to the world of the mind.

In the crashed farmhouse above, I nod to the pumpkin-headed gatekeeper, who is scowling at me, stick arms crossed over his chest. "It's been a while. How's the world?"

"Stable, and with a new influx of visitors," he says, "no thanks to you. At least you didn't bring an angel through this time." By the time I look over my shoulder, Zhune's already looking like his current vessel again. So I won't have to explain that part. I pulled on the image of my first vessel by default, which I should probably change, but that's old habit. "What were you thinking?"

"That you can trust some people to keep their promises," I say, though I never dragged a promise out of Penny to bring no harm to these people. Maybe I should've, back then. I wonder why I didn't think of it at the time. "Hey, did Ferro ever stop by here? A vehicle-strand kid, around your size. Might've looked like a sedan at the time."

"No one by that name," the gatekeeper says, and sighs, unfolding its arms. "You want to deal for anything else? As long as you've brought all that junk."

There's an absolute pile of tools around my feet. The last time I came to the Marches, I didn't have any talismans on me. It's not the sort of thing I usually work with. But here, all of the peculiar little items we grabbed, a lot of it jewelry and junk, looks like what it's _useful_ for. "Maybe," I say, and sit down on the floor. Which is not level, probably because of the witch pinned underneath the house. "I'm going to a very exciting auction, but I've only got partial directions to reach it. You heard anything about that?"

"Might've," says Pumpkinhead. "How much would you pay for hearing more?"

I pull on a pair of pink tennis shoes with white wings embroidered on the side. They don't go with this vessel, but that's fine. The little silver watch with a blue face goes on my wrist, and I fasten the necklace with a ruby heart dangling from it around my neck. Yeah. Going to have to change visuals for this to work. "Zhune, dream me up a backpack for the rest of this, would you? And we're willing to deal if you've got a good line on how to find the place. We're off to Rainy City, and past that it gets vague."

Pumpkinhead pokes one stick-foot through the pile of talismans, a hammer and three books and I'm not actually sure what that coil of wire would be used for. "You don't have the password, do you."

"Actually, we do. We'd be in sorrier shape if we didn't."

"You won't be able to afford what you want," he says. "Not even with all this." He crouches down to select the hammer. "Leave me with this and the password, and I can tell you how to get there from Rainy City."

"Both? How about one or the other. I've got a good idea of where to go next. Besides," I say, and eye Zhune, who has made no move to help me out with any of this, "we're not bidding for the big prize. Side stuff. We'll be fine."

"A 'good idea' will get you sucked into a one-way Domain and trapped for centuries, around that route," Pumpkinhead says. He hefts the hammer experimentally, and then turns to tap it on a battered chair. Which promptly looks a little newer, shinier, like it hasn't been in use for decades. It's all a matter of the mind in the Marches, visuals mean nothing, but...visuals mean everything. Get the right talisman on hand with the right sort of focus, and you get a lot better at making things look the way they should. I'll be that one just makes you better at woodworking, down on Earth. "This, and I'll give you directions. Password, and I'll give you advice."

"Ha. Advice." I stand up, and rock my heels back and forth in the shoes. Comfy, despite the appearance. So. How about this? I shift my image towards one that's easy to pull on: the vessel I most recently lost, and Zhune's favorite. Spiky auburn hair (it is not _red_ , whatever anyone says), and shredded clothing that looks like I made a deliberate fashion choice. The shoes still look a little out of place, but I stare at them until they get more scuffed, less brightly pink. There. Better. Shorter, female, obnoxiously adorable, to the point that I'd probably look good hanging out with Ash. No one's going to recognize me like this except Zhune, and maybe he'll stop sulking now for having acquired this concession. "Then if anyone comes asking, we were never here, and you got the password from someone else entirely. Deal?"

"That's acceptable." Pumpkinhead takes a sheet of paper from a drawer, while I dream myself up a good backpack, something that looks like military surplus stitched back together after a few tears. "You'll need to travel below the city."

"I knew that much." And I'm the one shoveling all the talismans into the backpack, because Zhune is still in full-on Djinn sulk mode. He can just _cope_ with not being as tough up here as he is on the corporeal plane, or back in Hell. He's not dumb, so I'm not worried about him being fragile, either. We'll get things done together here, we'll do it _well_.

I love being back in the Marches. I can finally move as fast as my own thoughts. Hit as hard as my planning. It's seductive, dangerous, like being _home_ , even while this place will spit me out the instant I wobble. I don't know why ethereals ever bother risking everything to come to the corporeal. Sure, it's a great place compared to Hell, but compared to the Marches? Why?

"You knew below, you didn't know where. There are a thousand doorways at the bottom of hidden stairs, in Rainy City. Most of them lead into traps." Pumpkinhead hands me the sheet of paper, covered in symbols and fragments of poetic lines. Which makes it a pretty standard Marches map. "What's the password?"

"Some say the world will end in fire." I sling the backpack on. It's as heavy or weightless as I want it to be, here. I say, just heavy enough that I remember it's there. Bigger on the inside than the outside, too. I love the Marches. "Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that, for destruction, ice is also great, and would suffice."

I walk out the kitchen door into the town plaza, stepping carefully over the legs pinned beneath the house. "Zhune, come on! Time's a-wasting."

He's only a few steps behind me, narrow-eyed as a Gamester surrounded by Jokers. "This is no time to be careless," he says.

"I'm not being careless." I wave to the winged monkeys watching us from the roof of the house. "You should probably change images. That one doesn't fit in well in this Domain, and we have to walk through it to get pointed in the right direction."

"What angel did you take through here?"

"Take a while guess. He didn't come through looking snakey, either." I rock on my heels. Light as a feather. This Domain won't let me fly without wings, and I'm not about to dream up any of those, but. It's a nice feeling. "Come on. Indulge the locals. Grizzled sea captain! Scarecrow! Rocking horse! There are plenty of options."

Zhune stares at me for a long moment. We're going to have one of those uncomfortable talks soon, I can just feel it, but I don't care. I'm enjoying this while it lasts. "You're the one who knows the terrain," he says, and his vessel's image blurs away. Melts through the previous vessel's image, wavers without stability for a moment, then settles down into a new shape. A leopard so big his head comes nearly to my shoulder, a long tail lashing behind him. "Acceptable?"

"Sure, good enough. I heard they're in negotiations with the latest set from Fairyland to pick up more flying cats, maybe even merge Domains. This one's secure enough and flexible enough that it gets a lot of minor fantasies attaching in as provinces for their protection." I start off down the yellow brick road, Zhune pacing deliberately at my side. He doesn't seem to be having any trouble coordinating four feet, his tail swaying behind him with deliberation. Maybe he's had a vessel like that before. "It's a smart move. The newcomers get a lot of benefits from attaching to a better-known Domain, and if anyone attacks, there's a larger defense force before it reaches the Emerald City."

"You know quite a lot about the ethereal for one who hasn't been here in some time."

"Rumors get around in Theft, Zhune. Once in a while I do talk with people when you're not looking." Most often with the Free Lilim, come to think of it. Who may well have been filing away my Needs with--but what's the point in dwelling on that? I always knew they could see in my head.

I'd probably start whistling, but I don't want Zhune to bite me. So I keep my thoughts to myself, and walk the path through this domain, my Djinn at my side. Yes, this trip might get me killed. Still. Couldn't be happier.


	11. An Interlude, In Which Lilim Talk

Ash sat on the edge of his balcony's railing, headset taking away any need to use hands for the phone call, and held a hand out to the pigeon. "Come on. I'm not going to hurt you."

Despite the crumbs he'd laid out on the railing, a trail from the furthest corner of the railing all the way up to where he sat, the pigeon refused to obey. It cocked its head sideways to stare at him with one beady eye, and cooed. Nothing like a demonling, even the winged ones, nothing at _all_ , with those wings. Those feathers! It was beautiful, gray and rose-pink around the throat when the light hit just so.

The hold music finally clicked off, into silence. "It's me," he said. "Ash. I passed off everything you gave me yesterday, and I got the call that they went to that Tether. So I guess we just wait?"

"We just wait," Syntyche said. "The purpose of a Geas is to make someone else do the work for you."

"Except between the setup kit and checking in on them and delivering information to that Habbie in the first place--"

"The term is Habbalite," Syntyche said. "Don't use slang. It's vulgar."

"Sorry. Habbalite." He swung his shoes down to the balcony floor, and walked back inside. To the apartment, to _his_ apartment, with high ceilings and clean floors and no one hammering on the door to tell him to leave off the paperwork, they needed him to look someone in the eyes, but discreetly, come on, we don't have all _day_. The corporeal plane was made of an endless silence, nothing but traffic below and wind above, the creak of floorboards outside when neighbors walked through the hallway. He wanted to roll up in it like a blanket, wrap it around him, hang it across the back of the couch. Show it off to the people stuck back in Hell. Look what _I_ have, and you don't. "I'm just saying, we're going to a lot of trouble to make this work."

"Because we want it to work," Syntyche said. He didn't like the way her voice sounded when she was talking about this job, lately. Like she was lying to him, even when she was saying ordinary factual things he could prove right there. "Life lesson, Ash. If you Geas someone into doing something they can't, you have wasted that Geas, and all the time you spent filling that Need."

"Unless the point is just to hurt them." He sat down on the couch, his own, all his own (if maybe technically in an apartment that belonged to a company that belonged to a board of directors who were all, in one way or another, just another way of representing Syntyche's interests, but he had paid for the privilege of being here, and it was _his_ ), and put his feet up on the coffee table. "But there are easier ways to do that. I guess I just don't understand why we care this much. If the job is that important, we could have sent one of our own people to do it, someone we'd trust to do it by our rules. If it's not that important, we could've let him figure out the hard stuff himself."

"Use the right tool for the job," Syntyche said. "He's the right tool."

"Sure, but I don't understand--"

"It's not always your job to understand," Syntyche said. "Unless you want to buy more information?"

He weighed that against his existing debts, the hope for acquiring a portfolio of his own. One on Earth, where it would be useful in so many more ways. "Maybe. How much would it cost me?"

"A year of your life, and secrecy beyond that."

"Then I guess I'm not buying." And because he didn't offer anything else, she hung up on him.

Which was fair. She was a busy Lilim, with more important things to do than sell him favors.

Ash put his feet up on the arm of the sofa, despite them being still in shoes. He liked his sofa, but the shoes were...special. A very reasonably priced housewarming favor, practically a gift at that price, for staying safe while on the corporeal. (People said it was so dangerous, but where was the danger? A few days here, and one Djinn had looked at him like, sure, it wanted to hurt him, but so what? The information booth back home got him nastier looks than that ten times an hour, and the occasional attack to flee while yelling for security.) So, keeping the shoes on, until he had run into some of the rumored dangers of this place, and could judge for himself how dangerous they might be.

He didn't understand the box. Talismans for trade, sure. The instructions on what to do, straightforward. But the book didn't mean anything at all to him, when he could've just said, hey, Leo, use that Tether we sold you information on before. That would be even less obvious, if it was supposed to be cryptic in case someone else found the box. And the book was in lousy condition. Full of underlined passages and drawings, bad drawings, like some kid scribbled all over it with whatever came to their mind while they were reading.

He hadn't met any kids yet, but hoped to. Hook them young, call in the debts when they're old enough to be able to pay you back. Ash was ready for the long view, for investments, for big picture thinking. That's how he got to the corporeal. Listening, learning, paying debts without any weaseling when they got called in, doing what Syntyche told him, and looking at the big picture.

Maybe if he put in a bookshelf, the Calabite would stick around longer next time. The file said something about that. Yeah. Go outside, go shopping, find out more about what humans were like in their natural habitat. Buy a bookshelf, buy some books. (Better ones than that paperback. Hardcovers, glossy spines, stuff that would look good on the shelf. He'd have to read a few, to be able to talk about them.) It was a good plan for the day.

Maybe if he kept thinking about this thing Syntyche was up to, he'd even figure it out. And wouldn't she be proud of him then?


	12. In Which The Marches Are Delightful, Despite Some Of Their Inhabitants

The fastest way to Rainy City is by the skybridge. The Marches being what they are, that's not "the fastest way if you start in Oz" or "the fastest way from the north," even assuming you could find anything outside a specific domain that more than three people could agree counted as north in the first place. It's just the fastest way. You find the skybridge, and that's how you get to Rainy City, though there are other routes that'll get you there too, if you don't mind spending a few subjective weeks on the process. It takes about eight hours of real time, either way.

In any case, having picked the skybridge as the easiest, simplest, and safest way to get to Rainy City, it's getting on my nerves that my partner just doesn't seem to _get_ the way the Marches work. Because the skybridge is up there, and we're down here, and I could use a little help in building this staircase, instead of an argument about it.

"This," he tells me, putting one paw on the first step, "does not look like it would support a gremlin, much less the both of us."

"That's because it's not done yet." I've got the curve of the spiral nearly worked out, but it's still all sketches in my mind, and in the air in front of me, it's an outline of a spiral staircase. Lines drawn in the air, wobbling back and forth as I try to work out something that'll take us up without too much spinning around in circles, but not so tightly that we're in a bad situation if something jumps us on the way. Not being able to move in a fight is no more fun here than it is on the corporeal. "It's either that or try to float up directly, and that can get weird in the Marches. It doesn't really like the third dimension, outside of certain places. So you can go all jetpack about it, but sometimes you just don't get there. Solid surfaces work best. You don't run into issues with dreams of falling."

"This is not solid. This is not _real_." He sits on his haunches, ears twitching, and stares around us. This field--I'm not sure if I can call it a field, this open space of moss and broken boulders, surrounded on all sides by pine trees, does not appear to be making him happy. He's always been more the city type. More to steal there. "You said there were other ways."

"Longer ways." I try making my outline fill in for a few steps. No luck yet. Deep breath, no matter that it's not really air here, and I try again. There. Shimmering mother-of-pearl set in an ebony frame. Utterly impractical, and just as reasonable in this place as pine or iron would've been. "We don't want to take the longer ways."

"We have two weeks." He paces about my staircase, watching the forests around us. "Will they take two weeks?"

"No, though it'd feel like it. And we don't want that."

"Why not?"

Because if I spend a few weeks jaunting through the Marches, even if it's only weeks in my mind, before I even need to start thinking about facing up to a Habbalite I haven't seen since Regan did in my first vessel, I'm going to have...the wrong sorts of thoughts. Thoughts like, hey, there are domains out there where I could spend a few days and it would feel like years, decades, how about I try one of those and see if I can work through recent trauma (it wasn't trauma, it was just annoying, I've been through worse before) and then get back to work?

That's a good way to pick up bad habits. Or maybe dissonance. I'm not sure how our dissonance condition works with _subjective_ time. "Too dangerous," I say. "We could get jumped twice a day for those subjective weeks. The skyways are heavily traveled, so we might get jumped anyway, but it's not so wild."

When I push with my mind, the outline _fills_. All the steps iterating up around the curve I set, perfectly identical, black and white around a single silver column. It's gaudy as hell and I like it. "Up we go."

"And this will hold," Zhune says. He doesn't put a paw to the first stair until I've taken a few steps up. "All the way."

"Sure. So long as I remember it exists. If I stop thinking about it, it'll probably fade after a while, since it's not appropriate to this landscape. But maybe not. You get weird dichotomies all the time in the Marches." I even put in a railing to make him more comfortable, in the same silver as the central column, and I run my fingers along that as I walk up. "It's the world of the mind, Zhune. If you can imagine it, you can have it. Except for when you can't."

"Explain," he says, padding after me with his tail lashing about uneasily, "the 'can't' part."

"You should know this. You're how old? You _must_ know this stuff already." I learned from an old Djinn of Fire, who taught us scabby little demons deemed useful enough to bother educating. I liked him. He almost never ate anyone who didn't deserve it. His coverage of the Marches took about an hour of lecture and an occasional note on things that worked funny here when he was covering other topics, but for a visit, what more does anyone need to know? "What do you want me to explain?"

"The important parts," Zhune says, and this is exactly the point at which I realize just how much he doesn't know.

Which is so weird that I nearly trip on the stairs.

I mean. He's Zhune. He always knows things. Not things he considers unimportant, like classic literature and psych terminology and how to date a building from checking out the windows, but all the big stuff. What every other celestial of every single Word can do (Secrets maybe aside), where everything is, _who_ everyone is. What to do next. What's been done before. But apparently somewhere along the way he classified "how the Marches work" with meaningless trivia like "the plot of _Jane Eyre_ " and, you know. Never picked it up.

Fuck. That's going to be a problem.

"Right," I say, and keep walking. It's a good thing there's a lot of staircase to go before we hit the skyway, and run into anyone who could overhear. "Picture the ethereal plane as the ice cream filling between two slabs of chocolate cookie. World of the mind. When you're out in the raw Marches, that fun silver sand we crossed between the last Domain and this one, you can do pretty much anything. Objects, environment, people, yourself, you can make it what you want by picturing it well enough. Imagining it, even. It's not all visuals, those are just the most obvious."

I'm not sure how to explain all this without sounding condescending. He's already holding this against me, I know it. I hurt his pride by rescuing him, by getting hurt to save him, and now I'm hurting it again by knowing more than he does in an area he needs to know. He'll pay me back for that, somehow. Maybe I can deflect that if I'm careful into an area where I don't mind the paying. (Dragged him to the vet one time when he got shot unconscious, and that turned into all sorts of getting forced into nasty situations until I got him something he wanted.) Anyway, it's more important that he get the information than that I save a little unpleasantness later on.

"Anyway." I stop to look up the staircase, and make sure it's repeating far enough. "That's all straightforward. You get into someone's Domain, though, and suddenly there are new rules. Different rules for different Domains, and it can be nearly anything. They can enforce how combat works, what you can look like, what you can build there, how you get in or out... It's one of the reasons to stick to Domains you've heard of. That you've heard of people coming back from. Rainy City is dangerous in some ways, but its borders are completely open. Walk in, walk out. No problem. So you pay _attention_ to the surroundings. If everyone's doing something the same way, there's probably a reason. You try to fit in until you have a good reason not to."

"Even though they're mere dreams," Zhune says behind me, his voice lower and rougher in this shape than it is in his current vessel, "and we are not."

"Some of them are figments. Mindless. Just moving pictures, no more brains than what projects on a movie screen. Some of them are ethereals. They range in power from...oh, demonling to baby demon, maybe a little stronger. You won't meet many as tough as us, but ones with similar strands--sort of like Bands, but a lot weirder and more complex--tend to group together, so they can gang up on you. If they beat you up in the mind, you wake up back at your Heart in a few hours, with new Discord."

"Which would be a problem," Zhune says dryly. "How do you defend yourself?"

"The normal way." I give the railing texture, a repeating pattern of scales like a Balseraph's skin, as long as I'll be running my hands over it for so long. That's better. "Hit them harder, faster, and try not to get hit yourself. It happens at the speed of thought. You feel better dealing with someone with a weapon in your hand," and my hand falls to the knife at my side, which I am not entirely comfortable with yet, "then dream it up. Beforehand, ideally, so that you're not distracted in the middle of a firefight by trying to remember what your favorite type of gun looks like. And if you're in a Domain where everyone else is carrying swords, don't try too hard for a rocket launcher. It probably won't happen."

"Ah," says Zhune. "I will try to remember that." Great, we've reached the sarcasm stage. Which he never appreciates when it's coming from me. "Is there any good news to go with this explanation?"

"That was the good news, Zhune. The bad news is that you can end up in celestial combat here a lot easier than back on Earth. No vessel to protect you, if someone wants to fight that way. Generally they don't, but some spirits will try. They get a lot more than emotional satisfaction out of it."

"So," he says, and catches up to pad beside me, his front paws hitting the same steps as my feet an instant afterward, "we're in an imaginary world of unpredictable monsters where the rules of physics and reality itself may change at any moment, and where people can chew on our souls at a whim."

"Exactly." I grin down at him, sharp and sure. "An awful lot better than Hell, isn't it?"

"You are a man of strange tastes," he says. "But I should have realized that the first time I saw you pick a book to read."

"Don't worry, kitty. I'll protect you."

The stare he gives me is feline, narrow-eyed, and promising a great deal of technically-not-dissonant retribution later. Fair enough.

"But seriously," I say, once the skyway draws into view overhead, "if there's a weapon you're most comfortable with, dream it up now. Or I'll think of one for you, since you're new to this. Now that we're outside the Domain, look however you like. Everyone does on the skyway. It's not--I'd say it's not a Domain that cares about image, but I'm not sure it's a Domain, either. Not exactly. If anyone's running it, I've never heard of who. It's just an old road."

The old road looks like dark water from beneath, like we're staring up at the surface of a river. Bits of debris sweep past in the current: branches, stones, the faces of dolls. Best not to think about it too hard. My staircase takes us past this current, past the edge of the skyway, and it's a set of layers as we walk up. The edge of the river. An infinite void, speckled with lights that are not stars. A pale pink light writhing towards us. And then the top of the skyway itself, which is, by the standards of the Marches, quite ordinary. A long ribbon of cracked stones, laid close together, but not quite touching, with inch-wide gaps between.

If you look between the gaps, you can see straight down down to silvery sands. I recommend not looking down. It's a little disconcerting, and leaves you vulnerable to being jumped by someone waiting for that reaction. Better to look up, at the arches that sweep overhead every twenty meters or so. Those are inscribed with poetry, if mostly in languages I can't read. An old ethereal who spent the last three thousand years pretending to be the spirit of a dead woman once told me that if you can read every line on the skyway, from the beginning to the end, they'll explain the true nature of the Marches. But I don't think the skyway is finite enough for that to work. Or maybe that was the point.

I look back to Zhune, while we stand at the edge on the single landing I imagined into my staircase. He makes a disgusted sort of leopard sound, and adjusts. To a man a little taller than my current vessel (and thus noticeably taller than my current image), a leopard skin hanging from his head with its jaws at his forehead, front paws hung over his shoulders. I've never seen whatever vessel this came from; it must be one long lost. He holds out one hand, and looks at it for a long moment.

And right when I'm thinking I should just offer to help, a sword appears there. Obsidian blade, jagged edges. I'm not so sure that's a leopard skin after all. Jaguar, maybe. Zoology wasn't my area of study. "Well," he says, hanging the blade at a belt at his side, and I'm not going to ask how the feline skin he's wearing meshes with the finely tailored suit he's imagined himself in, because when Zhune wants to make that work, it _works_ , "let's be on our way."

The skyway carries heavy traffic, by the standards of any part of the Marches that's not a Domain. So there's a cluster of ethereals far ahead of us, a shadow-creature tiptoeing past on the far side of the road, and, upon looking behind me, a mobile home about half a mile away, rolling in our direction. Shal-Mari could learn a lot from this example.

"Which direction?" Zhune asks, after we've both had a chance to take a look around and make sure nothing is jumping us immediately.

"Doesn't matter. Rainy City will be the third off-ramp on the left." I turn to walk towards the mobile home, which is probably building off elements like Buildings or Vehicles. Always got along pretty well with architectural ethereals, even if it was harder to hold a conversation with them than with Ferro.

"That makes no sense, Leo."

"It makes perfect sense. It's..." I pause while transparent creature carried by some sort of silent jetpack zips past us. "It's about thematic unity. Narrative. Dream logic doesn't work like real world logic any more than Hell's geography works like corporeal geography. Did the mountains in Stygia show up because of tectonic plates shoving against each other over the course of millions of years, or did they show up because someone with Prince at the start of their name went, hey, I think some mountains would look awesome over there? Getting where you want to go in the Marches means reaching an understanding with your location. Rainy City has decided that it's the third exit on the left from the skyway, so that's where it's going to be. And if I didn't know that, I could keep walking this skyway forever, and never see the exit."

"Is the city a being, that it can have opinions?"

"Yes and no." The mobile home is approaching us, so I step to the left to let it pass with plenty of room. Glowing eyes peer out of its windows, and I'm not sure if those are its own, or riders. Could be either. Both. "I swear, I'm going to buy you a book on this stuff when we get back home."

"I don't believe you can find those in your average bookstore," Zhune says dryly. At least he's not being so sullen about everything now that he's got some passing strangers to eye for potential danger. Some days, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was happier when he got to play pseudo-Cherub at stuff around us.

"So we go rob some Destiny Servitor. Or Fate, whichever. Someone's got to have a book on the basics, and you ought to read it. Otherwise, you're going to be this whiny the next time we come here." I wave cheerfully to the mobile home, and it rumbles on past.

"I am not whining. And there will not be a next time."

"You're totally whining. Take it from someone who's practiced at that skill and knows it from the other side." There's a pack of I don't know what approaching from further down the skyway, some sort of loping golden figures. I take out my knife, and toss it and catch it as I walk. Not making a big point of it, exactly, but let's all be clear on our self-defense options when meeting with strangers. "If we do a good job of this, how much do you want to bet Freedom will have a few more jobs for us in here?"

"And if we do a poor job of this--"

"Then I end up dead, or a puddle of dissonance-inflicted Discord, so let's do a good job."

The pack is resolving itself as it approaches, and they're already closer than I realized. The fuzziness wasn't distance, but that they're lions--lionesses, not a mane to be seen among them--made of a translucent golden shimmer. Like heat mirages, with green grass sprouting beneath their paws as they run, and then vanishing again behind them. Probably built out of some sort of Weather strands, and if we're lucky it's the kind that likes to spread good cheer and happiness wherever it goes.

"Incoming," Zhune murmurs, and it's like being back to where we were a few weeks ago, because he steps to the side, drawing his sword, and I'm here with a wild grin, just waiting for these kitties to come talk. Because they don't look like they're full of good cheer after all.

All I need now is a ceiling to drop on them, and--oh, hey. Marches. Where the environment can always be what you want out of it, if you just ask nicely enough. "Evening," I say to the lioness pack, as they move to circle us. We let them. Being forced up towards the edge of the road isn't an improvement. "Anything we can help you ladies with?"

The largest lioness pads up to us, while the others circle. Seven, at my count. If there's one real and the rest are figments, this is trivial. If they're all proper ethereals... Well, it's hard to judge size from image. Could get tricky. She yawns dramatically, a pink and glowing tongue curling out, and then speaks to me in a language I don't understand.

I shrug, and swap to Helltongue, lingua franca of the Marches, and isn't that a laugh in the face of the Host? This is what happens you decide to terrorize an entire plane of existence, and don't have enough sense to colonize it afterward. "What do you want?"

"Your shoes," she says, though she's keeping an eye on my knife. Necklace tucked inside my shirt, watch hidden by my artfully torn sleeve, all the other talismans in the backpack... Yeah, she's spotted the one talisman she thinks she can bully us into giving up. "Take them off and we'll let you go."

"Gosh," I say. "That sounds like extortion." I look over to Zhune. "I don't know, what do you think?"

"Extortion," Zhune says, and that obsidian blade sits in his hand like he knows how to use it. "Attempting to force someone into a contract under duress. Bullying."

"I'm pretty sure there's a rule against that," I say, and shrug to the lioness. "Sorry. My legal counsel has advised me not to agree to your terms. How about you and your pack keep on moving, and we overlook this little indiscretion?"

"We are many," says the lioness, "and you are few." She bares her fangs at me, individual beams of light that will hurt exactly as much as bone would. "Last chance."

"Hey," I say. "Can't claim I never warned you." I take the image I've been working up in my head, and shove it down into the reality of the road around us.

The stones beneath the pack's feet shrink from meter-square slabs down to paw-sized bricks, wobbling madly, and I grin at her like a god damn Calabite while two of her pride slip through and fall down into whatever is really beneath us on this skyway.

Two down, the rest off-balance, except for the lioness in charge who snarls and lunges for my throat. Which I could've dodged, hell, I could've punched her in the nose, except a black sword slaps her in the face first. So. I should let Zhune have some fun. I drop and roll away from the pounce of an ethereal who's regained enough footing to bound onto our solid slab.

Another lioness makes it to our slab. Three against two, and Zhune looks to have his hands full with stabbing the one in charge, so I ought to make myself useful. (It's a change of pace to be fighting things directly, instead of standing back with ranged weapons or resonance and letting Zhune take the hits.)

(Wait a minute. He's not as tough as I am here. I should be protecting him.)

(He is going to be so angry if he figures this out. Best not to mention it.)

Anyway. I slip between two sets of claws and teeth like it's a stroll in the park, which it almost begins to look like, with all these sunlight paws covering our one stable slab in green grass. Shove my knife into the back of a lioness's head. She's not happy about that, keens in a way that sounds nothing like lions (or even Cherubim in lion form whom I've seen go into fits), and I shove my resonance right down into the same spot.

She vanishes in a puff of logic. Heh. I love doing that. And with the knife in there, the other lioness I'm keeping off Zhune's back still doesn't know that I'm a demon, just that I can hit but _hard_. She backs away, tail lashing. "We'll devour the bones of your children."

"You'd have to find them first," I point out, and stride towards her like the wrath of Hell descending on her little fuzzy head. "Run while you can. Can't say I didn't warn you."

When I raise my knife, she leaps away. Actually gets her paws to land on one of the wobbling little slabs, and dangles there.

I could dream up a gun and shoot her, or probably hit her with my resonance from here, but why bother? I turn back to see if Zhune needs any help. His image has taken a swipe across one arm, sleeve torn and bloody. Automatic unconscious reaction, that; if he didn't want to look harmed, he could just not _look_ that way, but I don't think I mentioned that part. Anyway, he's laying about him with the sword effectively, so I stand back and watch any other pack members who might want to try to join in to save their leader.

No, the remaining two who never reached us or fell are gathering around the dangler, and with a lot of wary looks my way, adjusting the stones to give her enough ground to walk on. So I smile at them, and wave with my knife. Being friendly never hurt.

Zhune cuts through the lioness's throat with the jagged edge of his blade, and turns to me as she dissolves away. "Didn't feel like helping?"

"I was busy. Besides, you were fine." I replace the landscape with its original form ahead of us, leaving a two-meter gap between us at the lionesses at our back. If they really want to make an issue of this, they're welcome to try. "Don't suppose you know how to sing healing for the ethereal?"

"Why would I ever bother learning that?" And he snorts, hooks his sword back at his belt, and he is _happier_. Even if he's pretending not to be. A chance to prove his superiority against someone was exactly what he needed around here.

If it weren't so dangerous, I'd take him through a hostile detour just to bring his mood back up. But I do have a job to do, as the Geas reminds me whenever I think too long about delaying. So I shrug, and keep walking. The first exit's coming up on the left, a ramp pointing into the heart of an imaginary star. Not our stop. "Can't imagine why. Keep an eye out for more of those, would you?"


	13. In Which The City Is Dark And Damp

A significant number of Domains have ironic, sarcastic, or downright cryptic names, but Rainy City is exactly what it says on the tin. The minute we walk through the arch from the skyway exit, the drizzle hits us. Slate gray skies pour water down on the inhabitants of this city all evening, and in Rainy City, it's always evening. The clouded sky illuminates the streets just enough to let you see walls, curbs, oncoming cars and pedestrians. Not enough to make out any sign that's not lit up in neon or written across a window.

Oncoming cars don't move much faster than anyone on foot. Low black enormous sedans with dark windows... I'm not sure how many of those are figments driven by ethereals, and how many are ethereals themselves. Some must be pure window dressing. Rainy City's a big Domain with a high population, but it pretends to be vast. You can't tell who's real or not unless you watch for static facial expressions, repeated lines of dialogue, patterns in movement. Come to think of it, you can't even tell that much without intent study, because this domain believes that we should all be murky figures to each other unless stared at specifically. If my attention drifts from Zhune for more than a few seconds, he's merely a dark man-shaped blur at my side, like anyone else on the street.

So I remember to keep my attention on him, at least partly, while I try to navigate through the crowds and watch for street signs. Zhune could cut through these crowds like they were made of smoke, but he'd have to drag me along to make it work. Which is both embarrassing and hard on the wrists, at length. So we'll skip that.

"The Boss would like this place," he mutters. Or maybe he speaks normally, and it comes across that way in this city. It's a good place for whispered conversations.

"All the dark alleys?" I stop at a corner and try to read the street sign. Could imagine a bright light on it to not need to squint like that, but...when in Rome, and this place has a _style_ I'm loath to disrupt. Especially in a way that might draw attention.

"He had a place like this for a while. All Prohibition themed. Pinstripes and knock on the door at the bottom of the stairs, ask for Joe." He shrugs, face hard to read in the darkness and with that jaguar jaw hanging over his forehead. "A little before your time."

"What's this century's theme?"

"Whatever he decides on next."

"Accurate, yet uninformative. Thanks." I wipe rainwater off my face, and stride as briskly towards the next intersection as I can in this crowd.

Five blocks in, Zhune finally asks, "Where are we going?"

"Fourth Street." The Lilim's directions and Pumpkinhead's agree on this point, though they get differently vague after that.

"And after that?"

"It's a little vague, but I'll figure it out."

"Or," Zhune says, "you could tell me everything that's going on, so that we have a better chance of getting through this."

"What, and ruin the surprise?" God, but I love the glare I get in return. It's a lot better than sulking. "Fine. Let's get a table." Because I need to think about how to find Fourth Street when every street we've passed yet is numbered, but they're not in order.

I pick a door, smile at the figments waiting tables inside, and get us a booth in the back. I think all the booths are in the back; the place is made of dark corners for surreptitious meetings. After a perfunctory exchange of menus (illegible, as water has destroyed any writing on the paper) and money (conjured up on the spot, and exactly as valuable as the menus), the waiters leave us alone, trudging back to their circuits.

"So," Zhune says. "Why is it still raining inside?"

"It's in the name of the city, isn't it?" I spin a fedora up out of nothing, and offer it to him. "Not sure how that would look over your current hat." His gaze on me narrows. "Suit yourself." I put the hat on myself. It helps keep the water out of my eyes. "Give me a minute, and we can talk."

Some things in the Marches are easy to change. Yourself, especially if you're not trying to look too much like something unlike what you really are. Minor details around you. Visuals, especially. Everyone's used to shifting visual effects. Ethereals are all about that: half their identity is based on having a consistent image, while everything else changes around them. What's made is usually solid, at that, unless you intend it to be otherwise.

Now, sound? People don't pay enough attention to that. But it's just as malleable. And this Domain is amenable to certain ideas. Like secrecy. So I work up an area around us where sound's not going to move through. Not in, not out. The rain falls on us all the same, but the endless rush of it pattering across floors and shoulders and tables mutes out.

"Nice trick," Zhune says. "So tell me what the fuck is going on."

"You could've asked on the drive to the Tether." I pull out the map from Pumpkinhead, and lay it on the table between us. And because I sort of want him to be in a good mood for the upcoming explanation, I work up two bottles of beer for us. Won't get anyone drunk, but it tastes almost right. "There's an auction running for a handful of artifacts, most of them irrelevant to us. Every artifact in the Marches costs ten times as much anyway. One of them is _supposed_ to contain a Force each from Belial and what's-his-name, the Archangel of Waters, torn off during the last fight when Waters went down. So we get to the auction, make sure the Habbie wins, get the results away from her after she's paid, and find a way to hurt her enough that this Geas believes I've fulfilled the request for revenge. Everything else is details."

"Some Habbalite of Fire," Zhune says, and watches me steadily. "The one you worked for. Like I didn't see how you reacted when Unathi read out her name on your back. And you want to pretend you're fine with all this."

"I am fine. This isn't personal, not for me. It's all about what that Lilim wants. That _is_ how Geases work, you know." I never got the trick of making beer that tastes like I want, here in the Marches. Sight and sound and texture are easy, but taste? I guess it takes some knack I don't have.

"Like I don't know what you look like when you're trying to cover," Zhune says. "You're in over your head, and you're going to turn stupidly emotional over this project at exactly the wrong moment. You do this every time we run into someone you know."

"Which doesn't happen very often, does it? Seeing as you never let me talk to anyone other than your old friends." I find my fingers drumming on the edge of the table, and stop them. "You want details, or you want to complain?"

"You could get the breakdown out of the way now." I wouldn't mind so much if he looked smug, like he was _trying_ to be an asshole about this, but he's got his _I'm being reasonable, you're being oversensitive_ expression on. Not my favorite interaction mode with my partner, this one. Been a while since I started destroying things around him to make a point. Maybe we're overdue. "Maybe we could run into your old friends once in a while if they weren't evenly divided between angels and people who want to kill you."

Actually, when I think about it in those terms, the former outweighs the latter. The only old friends likely to kill me are Regan and Al. Maybe Yejide on the outside. No one else who wants to kill me was ever a _friend_. "I'm going to blame that on the general sociopathy of demons, and constant Word-swapping, which was not my fault. Does this have anything to do with this job?"

"You want me to believe that because we're in the Marches, everything's fine," Zhune says. "I'm not stupid. You're going to fall apart on me, and I get stuck picking up the pieces."

"Says the man who couldn't avoid being kidnapped from his own Heart. If you're going to be like this, go back home and _wait_. I'll catch up with you when I'm done." However I finish this. If I can finish this without him. I am good here, but...I'm not that great at Theft on my own. We run two-man cons, we play backup to each other, and doing this alone will probably end in...well, knowing me, explosions and fires.

Zhune snorts. "Tell me how we're getting there."

Which is almost like a vote of confidence, but a lot more annoying. Never mind that. I _am_ fine, with a goal on hand, a map, a plan, a place to work where I can finally move the way my mind says I should be able to. This will work out, and he'll never _admit_ he was wrong, but he'll know. Just like he knows he needed me to get him out of Shal-Mari. "Three questions, a quest, a descent into the underworld, and a dramatic revelation of self."

"That is not a set of directions, Leo."

"It is in the Marches. Are you going to drink that, or make a better one yourself?" He shoves the beer over to me, so I take it off his hands, and slouch back in my seat. I can look like confidence and danger even in this image, and one Impudite we met told me it looked scarier that way than in my male vessels, because everyone expects men to think they're a little dangerous at heart. When women look like they know they're dangerous, people _wonder_. "Travel follows a narrative arc, especially if you're moving through Domains built on fiction, like this one. We need to ask or answer three significant questions, commit to goal--it's probably not what we're really after, but the statement of intent is important--and then there's a descent, which, based on this map, is probably literal. They like concretizing metaphors here. There's a password into the auction, and a personal reveal. After that it's all ordinary confidence games."

Zhune places his hands flat on the table, raindrops slicking down the fine hairs on his knuckles. "What does a Habbalite want?"

"To get the job done. But she'll have an assistant. She always does, and it'd be stupid to travel through the Marches without backup." He raises an eyebrow at that, and I keep going before he can point out what I said earlier. "So that's an angle, and there might be a better one on working through other bidders. Nightmares will send someone on principle, and Dreams might, or... I don't know. Who used to be allied to Waters?"

"Wind," Zhune says. His fingers curl into his palms, a gesture I'd think was a prelude to a sudden attack on someone nearby if there were any obvious target. "Lightning. Elemental Words, primarily, though Waters sat between the peace and war factions in Heaven, leaning more towards the latter. Must've been as cracked as Gabriel by the Word friction with Oceans, to go brawling after that. Or let personal motivations push it into stupid plans." The following look is pointed, and I will politely ignore it. "Hard to say. No one can understand Kyriotates when they're small, much less when they're Archangels."

"I'm not afraid of a pack of Windies showing up, if it comes to that. We can _work_ with someone else causing idiot chaos for the sake of chaos. Lightning, I don't know. They're sharp."

"They die as easily as anyone else," Zhune says. "Sometimes more easily, on the corporeal." His hands relax out flat again, and I think I need to remember to watch those more carefully here, where he's better at controlling his face. "Maybe less so on the ethereal, but if you're so fucking cocky about that, you can play meatshield this time."

"Sure, whatever." I run a finger down Pumpkinhead's directions. The paper's not dissolving on the wet tabletop. Good dreaming, and I reinforced it myself, so that it wouldn't vanish the instant I walked out of that Domain or into another one. But I might lose it if I walk into one that doesn't like paper at all, so I'd better get these notes memorized, like I did with the Lilim's directions. "We've already cleared one question. If we can find someone to tell us where Fourth Street is, that'll be the second. Shouldn't be hard to trigger a third, make a statement of intent--they might've provided a doorkeeper at that stage to simplify, but with prices like these they're expecting people who know how to find their own way, so I wouldn't expect it--and then down we go."

"This is lunacy," Zhune says. "I suppose I ought to expect that while in the Marches."

"Pretty much." I shove the paper back in my pocket, and finish off his beer. "It's not actually that hard. They love patterns here. Tropes. God damn _motifs_ , it's like writing lit essays all over again. You want to know how to analyze a work of literature? Go find the ethereals built from it, and watch what they're doing."

"I have never wanted that," Zhune says. He follows me through the silence shield I built, into the susurrous of constant city-wide rainfall. "Because it's a stupid thing to want."

"Civilization's built on the liberal arts. Otherwise it's just warfare and junk." I duck out through the back door, because it feels more appropriate. "Here in the Marches, the building on the liberal arts is more literal." We've reached a dark alleyway, walls towering up on either side of us, and shadows cutting dramatically across brick. "Let's get the second question handled. Back off a bit, would you?"

"Why?" he asks, gaze flicking up and down the alleyway. Good instinct. This place is dangerous. It's screaming that in every language the human-themed part of the Marches speak.

"Because I'm stepping into a story."

He has to think about that, but not very long. He's _smart_ , my partner is, even if his brain doesn't work in the same lines as mine. Which is for the best; no point in having us come up with the same plans all the time. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Bingo."

So he backs off, all the way down the alley to where I can't make him out as anything but a man-shaped blur in the shadows, even when I'm paying attention. I tilt my fedora back, and wait.

Doesn't take long. Three men slink into the alleyway. Leader, bruiser, and the weasely little one that giggles too much. I knew the roles when I saw the number of them. Two's a different set, four or more starts being leader-and-mooks. So long as the leader's not a figment, this should work fine.

"Hey, little girl," says the leader, and against the faceless blur of his shape his teeth stand out in a sharp white grin, and his blade flashes silver when he snaps it open. "You got lost?"

"Wow," I say, and rock back on my heels. If the Marches weren't enough to make me feel like I could do just about anything with this image of my body, the shoes would be doing it too. I can live with pink and little stitched white wings if it makes me feel like I could bolt from danger--or towards it, if I like--this easily. "I've never heard that line before."

The three of them stalk towards me. Little one giggles to himself, big one looks wary... And he's supposed to be the comic relief, so he shouldn't be. No figment, that. But what are a handful of thugs against me?

And Zhune, if I've misjudged and this is the archetype of sinister thugs in dark alleys for the whole city. They probably have one.

I draw my knife, because as much fun as it is to blow things up with my mind--and things blow up _well_ around here, when I get started--it's a good idea to keep quiet about the demon thing a little longer. Gets the wrong sort of attention, both in more hostility and in people I might want to work with edging away. "Hey, look," I say, and there's that same silver gleam off my blade, because this city has a visual motif that it cares about deeply. "Mine's bigger."

The big one moves in first. This is traditional. He doesn't want to, but the story's got him in motion, even as his face (and isn't it interesting that I can see his face, and not the faces of the other two?) is reading _I know this ends badly._ I'm not dressed right for the victim, the corpse, the lady in a pool of red. I'm dressed like the punky vampire hunter who turns around and says, _Surprise._

Meant to make a clean stab of it, knife to the eye, but the city has ideas that are stronger than the direction of my stab. He lunges for me, and my knife cuts across his throat, a glittering arc that cuts through raindrops and leaves them suspended in the air. We are slow motion for an instant, time around us slowing down so that the raindrops glide slowly through the air as the spray of red blood, brighter red than it ever is in reality, describes its own plane of motion. Suspended in mid-air, and glowing like there's a light turned on over us.

Then time returns to what it was doing, and he falls back, clutching at his throat, the wall to my left painted in vivid red splatters that would, I think, melt away into words without the slightest complaint if I willed them to do so. Not my style. I spin the knife between my fingers, and smile at the next two. Yeah. Jump the Calabite. That's going to end well for you.

Next up is the giggler. Speedy little man, not much taller than I am, and when he comes at me with his knife (this might be trouble if they packed guns, but those only show up at dramatically significant moments in Rainy City), he's so damn erratic he slashes through my shirt sleeve, right down through arm to _bone_ and that hurt, but only a little, it's more visual than damage (but yeah, there's damage to my mind there, a tiny bite at the edge of my concentration). Ow. I swap my knife to my other hand, and this time my stab (I just want to stick this blade _in_ someone, is that too much to ask?) turns into a slash down across his chest, time slowing around us as the blade buries deeper with every inch it moves down.

Neck through chest down to gut, I cut him open like I'm unzipping a jacket. All that sprays out is blood. High pressure, bright red, painting across the left half my face like I'm wearing a mask, and he doesn't stop _giggling_ until a few seconds after he's hit the ground.

The leader might want to run, or maybe now he wants to see this through. Doesn't matter either way; the narrative will let me run, but not _him_ , not until he's tried to take me down. I could almost feel sorry for him; he's only doing what he was imagined to be.

But we all are what we're made to be, and the Demon Prince of Fire made me a Calabite, so this is not the part of the fight where I run away.

I spread my hands, and the gleam of our knives matches. "If you know what you want, come and take it."

Maybe he'd rather talk over coffee. Maybe he'd rather offer me a job. What he does is lunge in, fast with the knife and fast on his feet, and now there's a black coat billowing dramatically behind him as he moves. I flick my hat into his face, tumble neatly below his arm (an instant of memory, Regan trying to show me how to dodge better, how to not get _hit_ , the argument over whether I'd be better off staying out of fights entirely, the way she hit me to make a point and kissed me because she could), and stab him in the back. Finally. The blade goes in sweet and true, right between the shoulders, and blood stains his coat red as he snarls and whirls around again. The knife's back in my hand already.

"Come on," I say, "let's deal. I have one question to ask, and if you answer it honestly, we'll let you live." Zhune's an approaching shadow on the other side of this thug, and for all his dramatic coat and hat combo and shiny knife, he's not a gang lord, no one with an army of minions to call in against us. A little lord with two little minions. "Or you can keep trying this approach, and see what happens."

He spreads his hands out wide, and drops his knife. (It glitters once on the ground and vanishes. I bet he has the same one inside his coat again already.) "You have questions, little lady, ask away."

I'd tell him to stop calling me that, but in this image, it's kinda accurate. Never mind. "How do we get to Fourth Street?"

"Between Fifth and Third, what do you think?"

I can't see his face, but I know what a lie sounds like. Can't date a Balseraph for that long without picking up on the details. "Try again," I say, spinning my knife about so that it glitters prettily in the light, though the light isn't coming from anywhere. Best not to think about that too hard. "I'm not sure how much taking off fingers would hurt you, but we could find out!"

The man looks back to Zhune, who is quite effectively blocking the line of escape. "Down to the train tracks. Take a table at the cafe with the dry floor. You want Fourth Street, you need a party of four, and figments don't count. Rough part of town, but I think you'll do just fine, sweetheart. That enough for you, or do you want to play for longer?"

"That's fine by me," I say, because that sounds exactly right, and if it's wrong, well, there'll be a need for a third question anyway. "Time for you to run back home."

And he tries, but Zhune rips his head off before the ethereal can get very far. Another pretty blood spray painting the wall of this alleyway, and it doesn't surprise me that they line up in order of size, first second third, each a work of abstract art.

"I told him--"

"You don't," Zhune says, tossing the head to me, and I catch it without thinking about it, "get to make any promises for me. Not without running them past me first. Got it?"

I drop the head. My hands are bloody now, and trying to dream the blood off myself isn't working. The rain should take care of that in a bit. "Yeah," I say, and, well, maybe I should be happy. He's getting comfortable in this place. That's good, isn't it? "Fair enough."


	14. An Interlude, In Which Research Is Expensive

Ash's headset broke through the hold music to a live line after thirteen minutes straight of J-pop, right when he was in the middle of reading the instructions for the new espresso machine for a third time. "I got most of it, little Sister," said Ishani. "Why do you want these files, anyway? Little Jokers barely have files. Only one of them ever had corporeal duty."

"Just, you know, research." Ash fitted the tiny silver cup into place, and consulted the diagram again. Years upon years of filing and data analysis in one of the twistiest languages ever invented, and he still couldn't interpret the assembly directions. There was a lesson in this somewhere. "What do you mean by most?"

"I mean that one of the files isn't going to do you much use. The Shedite's listed as MIA, kid. Broken Heart, presumed dead. The host it was using turned up dead near enemy territory. General consensus is that it tried to pull off some big idea its first time on Earth, and failed hard." Ishani yawned on the other end of the line. "Why didn't you just pull these files yourself?"

Because if he went through the system himself, it marked up every search, every opened file, that wasn't attached to a paid research project, and added it to his debt. Reasonable debt, every hour had been _worth_ it, but...Syntyche would notice, and she would draw conclusions, and this wouldn't work, he'd never impress her with his cleverness, if she could see the entire fumbling process of him trying to this himself. "Because I'd rather pay in cash than Geases," he said, and stepped back from the counter to compare the assembled machine to the picture on the box. It was...similar. "Paypal to the same address?"

"Yes, but I'm going to have to dock the total."

"It's not your fault one of them died, or went Renegade, or whatever." He tried reversing the cup's direction. Was that lever supposed to point in that direction? Maybe the box was showing its position in use, and not its starting position. Time to check the directions again. But later, he was tired of putting things together. Where was a Vapulan when a Lilim needed a little tech help?

"That's not the point. I can send you the full files on the other Jokers, but the Shedite has a bunch of classified notes. With the big Do Not Share tags on them, so if you want to pay for those, you'll need to do it in person. No go-betweens."

Wasn't that interesting? The last time he'd seen beneath a Do Not Share mark, it had been about a Djinn of the Game who'd done work for Freedom, the kind of thing that could get someone in _serious_ trouble if anyone found out. So maybe the Shedite had done Freedom work too. That would explain why Syntyche had sent Leo to visit it. Pity that it was dead, that meant he couldn't ask it himself.

"Never mind," he said, and sat down on his coffee table to survey the apartment. The bookcase wouldn't arrive for three more days, which gave him plenty of time to pick up books to go in it. "I don't need anything classified."

"And you're not telling me what you're researching, little Sister," Ishani said. "No, that's fine. It's more fun to guess. The invoice will be attached to the same email. Call me back if you need any other look-ups? I'm saving up for a new car."

"I will," Ash said. He hung up, and checked his tablet. Email: right there, with attachments. That done, he called the next Sister on his list.

"I'm telling you," Rafe said, the sound of typing and YouTube videos of pratfalls a constant noise behind her void, "this is one weird file. If it's not covered in Do Not Share and confidentiality barriers beyond anything _I'm_ willing to pay, regardless of what you're offering, it's full of corrections. You should take a look at the change-tracking page. They've changed what date he's listed as joining Theft five times, and the final date still has two footnotes. A classified footnote, and one saying that the Demon Prince of Fucking Theft Itself has confirmed this date." 

"Some files are like that," Ash said. "Do you want those _Matilda_ tickets or don't you?"

"I wouldn't be doing your homework for you otherwise," Rafe said. "You're really so busy you can't look this up yourself?"

"So busy as you wouldn't believe," Ash said. He leapt to his feet. The corporeal was lovely, but it made him...wobbly. Weak. Slow. He needed more practice, and had just the park in mind. Go jogging, read what passersby Needed, and maybe some of them would need _his_ help. Every portfolio started somewhere. "All I need is the blacked-out parts that aren't rated DNS."

"Ash, do you know how much this will cost me?" Rafe said, but she was typing again, and he was pretty sure she was running the request. "You're lucky I've got that big lead on someone who Needs those tickets."

"I know, I know." He crouched down to check the laces on his shoes, and debated the wisdom of having this conversation out of the apartment. No one really paid attention to people talking on earpieces anymore, that's what Syntyche told him when she bought it for him, but that didn't mean they wouldn't listen. Or overhear the wrong sorts of things. "You're sending the file?"

"As soon as the tickets arrive."

"I'm ordering them now," he said, and that actually took half an hour of working through a few other contacts to get a decent price. But once that was done, he moved down to the next call on his list.

"Stacks," said Kessa, "and stacks. I cannot imagine why you would want to waste the time on this. Some of the papers in this file are in a dialect of Helltongue so old that I shall be forced to run it through a translator before sending."

"I guess that's what happens when a demon lives for several hundred years," Ash said. "He's, what, nearly as old as Theft?"

There was a long pause on the other side of the call. "You're not paying me enough to answer extra questions," Kessa said. "Would you like this as a PDF?"

"Sure," Ash said, "whatever's easiest." And when he hung up on that phone call, he gave some serious thought to what had prompted the pause. Wondered, briefly, if he should research how long it took Helltongue to shift enough to need translation, but, no, he thought that might be a bad idea after all. He reviewed the files that had come to him, and got the espresso machine working, and, after a little more research--done on his own account, very minor things, barely two hours to his debt--called Ishani again.

"Hey," he said, when the hold music took him through. "I need to pull up one more file."

"Sure thing, little Sister," Ishani said, and he could hear the same album as she'd been using for hold music playing in the background behind her. Why didn't he have a sound system? An entertainment system, come to think of it, something gloriously expensive but classy. He'd need to research the furniture options for that, and consider where to put it in the apartment. "Who do you want?"

"There's this one Lilim, I think a Free one, called Levon--"

"Don't."

He was so entirely baffled at a Sister breaking out a direct command that he didn't even know what to say.

"Sorry," she said, after a moment. "I take that back. It's not an order, it's advice. I recommend that you back away from whatever project you're on that has you looking up that name, and for the love of all that's unholy, never bring it up around Syn. Please, trust me on this one."

"But if you run the query for me--"

"It's blacked out," she said. "Blacked out and tagged. If I pull the file, which I won't, so stop asking, Syntyche will be asking me pointed questions within the day. So what I would _advise_ , little Sister, is that you abandon whatever project has you running across that name. Or abandon that part of it. There's nothing interesting to find there."

"Okay," he said, "I'll keep that in mind."

He curled up in a corner of his couch, in his own apartment, with his very own shiny tablet on his knees, and pulled up the files he'd been sent. It was worth wondering why Syntyche was hiding things from him. (From everyone? Not specifically from him. Anything worth hiding from him was just...big stuff. Things he wasn't old enough to be trusted to yet.) Of course she'd be careful when sending someone out on a mission against someone in good standing with their own Word in Hell, that was just _normal_ , but it wasn't about that.

He had all the pieces.

Maybe putting together the puzzle was a bad idea.

He rolled his eyes, and opened a new tab. Started taking notes on the interesting parts of the files, the bits around blacked-out options. Dates and locations (often easy to determine from what was around them, where the gap had to occur), the usual analysis stuff. Syntyche was clever, more so than anyone else. If she didn't want him to find out, she'd hide the information well enough that he couldn't.

It was interesting, though, that his own day of creation--no need to look that up--was the same day as Leo's. He couldn't imagine that it could _mean_ anything, but. Why not write that down? Information analysis was all about gathering up the coincidences and confluences in a big heap, and then sorting down through it to what really _meant_ something.

Like Ishani said. Figuring it out would be fun.


	15. An Interlude, In Which We See The Category Of Old Friend Which Are Not The Ones Who Want To Kill Me

"Tell me what's on your mind," said the Elohite.

Peniel closed his eyes, and explained.

#

She was undersized, underfed. Childhood malnutrition would do that to a child, and he could not tell if she were six or ten or anywhere in between, a girl with stick-thin wrists and cunning eyes. He knew about the wrists because he caught her by one while she was trying to rob the guildhall, the Tether, where he gave aid to the Seneschal. At times he could still feel that wrist within his grasp, though that had been a different vessel, a different continent, a different era.

He took what she had stolen from her hands. He gave her bread. He told her, find another like you. Someone who needs this as much as you. Bring them back here, and I will give you both this again, and more.

She brought back another child. Smaller than her, with wider eyes. He gave them bread, he gave them shirts, he spent hours in Heaven speaking with others about limitations and practicalities and the difficulty of working on the corporeal. (A Mercurian who had once been otherwise told him, _You can't save everyone_ , and he knew it to be true, and it was a truth that cut deeper than any had before. He had known, before. But he had not _known_.) He spoke with the Seneschal. They considered resources.

There were other children in that city as hungry. Hungrier. Dead of hunger, now and again, though not often. The city was not so large, the need not so great. Most found a way.

And he told the Seneschal, _These are the two I know._

She was a Cherub. She understood.

He had a plan, and he had arrangements, a Soldier willing to take another child into his family (the guild would provide, she was clever enough to be trained even from a late entry if they began soon), space, resources. The numbers added up.

The smaller girl came to the back gate alone, bruised and bloody, still wide-eyed, and said, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ , as if it were her fault. When he had the truth from her, they sent out a Malakite. A smiling Virtue in the vessel of a grubby little girl, and when she returned, her hands were clean. She had washed away the blood.

The smaller girl was given the place that had been set aside for her. Another child was found to fill the place made for the other one, the one he had spoken to first, the one whose wrist he could still feel between his fingers when he closed that hand of a vessel and remembered.

No, he did not feel guilt over it. He could not have known. He had done his best. Circumstances intervened, in the form of common, petty, human evil. However, regret was inevitable. One could not change the past. One could only think of how it might have been changed, and learn from the experience. Learning might provide better routes, better options, better _results_ , in similar situations when they came up later.

Or perhaps it might not.

#

"You're projecting," the Elohite said.

"Of course I am," Peniel said. "However, knowing this is true does nothing to change how I feel."

"Would you like to talk about it more?" asked the Elohite.

"No," Peniel said. "Thank you for listening."

#

He moved through the crowds of the Bazaar, sliding across the tiles of the plaza his rooms overlooked. He needed this, laughter and haggling and sunlight across his back, to be himself as he truly was and not...in the body that was his, but not him. With those two hands and two eyes and dwelling on memories long past.

No, he did not feel guilt over what had occurred. Regret, consternation, but not _guilt_ , whatever that Djinn wanted him to feel. (He could imagine it as a Balseraph, sometimes, with the way it pretended and pushed and spoke so _convincingly_ with the full belief in what was not even true in the depths of its mind.) Guilt was neither appropriate nor useful, any more than it would be appropriate or useful to hold a grudge against the innocent.

He entered a building that was all glass and steel at the first floor, and ascended to the rooftop garden. Slipped down the paths, away from a party, away from two business meetings, towards a place in the back. A quieter place.

One enormous Kyriotate divided and was actually two of slightly disparate sizes, moving politely before him when he looked towards a cluster of trees. (This was not the garden of Novalis; the trees might dig their roots into the building, but the paths were orderly, the private nooks marked out by signs and arches, the visitors more prone to carry cell phones in hand than flowers in hair.) The larger of them said, "May we help you?"

"Perhaps," Peniel said. "May I speak with Eder for a few minutes?"

"Are you an old friend?" asked the smaller Kyriotate. "We've been trying to find as many as we could, but of course so many of them are down on the corporeal--"

"No," Peniel said. "I have only met them once before. At the Tether."

"Be gentle," said the larger Kyriotate, and let him pass.

In a cluster of trees, a cluster of angels. Cherub, two Mercurians, Malakite, all with full attention for a Kyriotate in their midst.

Penny wished in an instant that he was in a vessel. That he had not come. That he was somewhere else entirely. And he knew that the feathers of his wings had risen in unsettled ridges that everyone would see.

"Hello," said the Kyriotate in the center, and their eyes blinked at Penny repeatedly. "We...don't remember you. Do we know you?"

"We only met in the Tether," Penny said, and showed the appearance of his vessel as it had been when he stood in front of a mad-eyed Soldier of Theft while the Shedite in her head said through her mouth, _I want to go home._

The Kyriotate shivered all along their length. "Ah," they said. "Yes. We remember you now." And they waited, because...

...because Penny had come with a purpose, interrupted with a purpose, and he was not going to say any number of things that were true. What he said was, "I'm glad you made it through. That you're back home. That you found your way back." Because all of these things were also true.

"Someone showed us the way," Eder said.

"Yes," Penny said, "I know."

The Kyriotate opened all their eyes, focused them all upon him, and asked in a small voice from a single mouth, "Is he okay?"

"He's..." No, _okay_ was not the word. Was one of many words that did not apply to that maddening, darling, peculiar Calabite who fought and snapped and lied against any hint as to where he belonged. Penny preened down a line of feathers on one wing. "Still alive, as of a few days ago. The last I heard. No one has found out what he did but his partner, and that one will protect him."

"We would hope so," Eder said, "after all he did for it. We will not tell his secret to anyone. We consider it no business of various people who have been asking after our story."

"Thank you," Penny said. "I..." He ran out of words, he had run out of true things to say that would not hurt, beyond that. "I ought to go," he said, and left before anyone could gainsay him. It was true.


	16. In Which I Am, Let's Face It, Pretty Awesome

Finding the train tracks doesn't require any additional murder. (I can't call it self-defense when I walked into that alleyway knowing exactly what bait I'd laid out. But as Zhune would say, some cons only work because the mark is trying to screw you over first.) The sky even changes color, a dirtier mottled gray from the clouds of black smoke rising from the locomotives. A few dozen tracks run parallel with a tangle of connections and switches between them, and half are occupied with trains that just wait there, smoking. Another rattles past periodically, or stops to let a crowd on and off.

There's a passionate, melodramatic break-up scene going on at the edge of the tracks, on a dingy platform where two ethereals are leaving each other. I don't understand the language they're speaking, but I can get the gist of the argument. This would be the place to break up, if you must do it as an ethereal. Some trains will take you to Domains you can't reach easily in any other way. (Some of those Domains have entrances and no exits.) Some trains will devour you if you step inside, but those ones are easy for the locals to spot. Maybe not so much for the tourists.

Zhune and I have found a damp sidewalk (though at this point "damp" is so true of everything, including us, that I should be looking for exceptions to that description) to stand on while I try to figure out which cafe is the dry one. The era copied has changed in this neighborhood, or maybe at this time of day, or when some powerful ethereal I haven't noticed walks by... Could be any of the above, for a Domain. The cars parked along the curb are 1960s classics; if I saw that Corvette back on Earth, we'd be in a new car for a few days, and then Zhune would have to pry it out of my hands as too distinctive. (I don't care much about cars if they do what I want and aren't SUVs, but I'll admit some of them are prettier than others.) He's watching for danger, like anything is going to jump us here, and I'm watching the faces of people passing. Trying to pick out two people real enough to form a party of four with us when we find the cafe. We can pay or bully people into joining us for that much, though I'd rather pay. Less likely they'd bolt and we'd need to try again.

"I don't like any of this," he mutters, bending his head to say that right into my ear.

"Neither do I. You're scaring everyone the fuck away." Because we are getting a wide berth in the crowd, even figments edging away from the way Zhune is playing the role of Dangerous Thug At Large. You don't need a real mind to know the warning signs. And it's been surprisingly difficult to get the blood washed off of us. Anyone who looks in our direction will see the red on our hands, which, okay, probably won't help much when I try to convince two people to go out a double-date.

All the shadowed blurs of people resolve in turn as I look at them. Anyone looking distinctly inhuman has a higher chance of being an ethereal from elsewhere, and thus someone real enough to persuade. Rainy City is easy to find, but you can't walk into it from another Domain and live for long without a little wariness and perception of danger. A woman with antlers and the ears of a deer shies away from us, high heels tapping on the sidewalk. A lumbering creature made of branches with yellow eyes inside a dark hollow--no, any ethereal built on Fear isn't going to be useful. Too likely to be working for Nightmares. Talking dog, who still manages to look human-shaped when not viewed directly. This Domain _cares_ about its crowd scenes.

A pair of human-form ethereals don't look to be skirting around us in their approach, and I can't figure out yet if they're figments or not. The woman is dressed for the setting several blocks back, walking straight off a _Maltese Falcon_ set. (Though come to think of it, she'd probably be whiter, if so. Not in the black-and-white sense, but in the racial sense. I wonder what movie she's from.) Her companion is dressed...wrong. A long blond braid down his back, rough clothes like he's working in a garden, and a staff in hand. And the monkey tail behind him isn't setting-appropriate. Now that's not a figment, and it's either stupidity or confidence that has them heading straight past us, instead of avoiding Zhune's glaring.

And while I'm working out how to sound friendly and amiable despite the whole problem of bloody hands, the man with the monkey tail grabs the woman at his side and yanks her away. Which I might almost take personally if it were not immediately followed by that nice Corvette exploding.

Zhune wraps an arm around me and pulls me back, which is _unnecessary_ because that can't--well, okay, in this Domain, maybe a car bomb could hurt me, but I was _watching_ that, none of the exploding glass had hit me, and I was doing just fine without the manhandling. But. Never mind that. I've seen that move before, what the man did, and I think I've spotted _exactly_ who we want to ask into our party of four.

"Let _go_ ," I tell Zhune, and he shifts his grip to just a hand on my wrist. "Seriously, it's an environmental hazard, not a real one. Unless that's an ethereal of exploding cars attacking someone. Car bombs happen around here sometimes."

"Any other hazards I ought to let you be consumed by? Or did you really want to test how ethereal fire feels when you run into it?"

...oh. That. I. Have no idea what _imaginary_ fire would do to me, and I should test that out, but maybe not right this minute. "Right," I say, because he would never believe _I'm sorry, you were right,_ even if I were willing to say that out loud. "Anyway, I figured out who to talk to. Back me up on this one. Maybe from a few steps back."

I detour around the flickering remains of the car, though I do admire how the light of the flames are playing off all the surfaces around them, terrain and people and even raindrops illuminated for an instant in their descent. Whoever the master of this Domain might be, I admire their visual aesthetic. (Might have a few words with them about the persistence of blood. Can't they let that part be metaphorical, rather than literal?) A crowd is gathering to watch the flames, mostly figments drawn in by an event that needs a crowd scene, but here and there I can spot people with individual faces among the watchers. The problem with trying to track down that couple again is that, point the first, I need to look at every person in turn to recognize them, and point the second, if a Cherub has decided his attuned is in danger, he might not be sticking around to watch the aftermath. No matter how pretty.

And then some asshole grabs my backpack, and runs. The straps snapping in a way that _I_ didn't plan on, so it's an ethereal with enough control over its surroundings to do that.

Angels need to wait. That's my stuff, and stealing from Theft is--personal. That's _our_ schtick, and we do not appreciate the reversal.

The thief's a shadowed figure ahead of me, a blur, even when I focus on it. Maybe one of the locals. Damn fast on its feet, but I am _faster_ in this place, feet pounding on wet pavement in these ridiculous pink sneakers that tell my mind I know how to _run_.

And who am I to argue with a talisman? It knows what it's doing.

The thief cuts away from the sidewalk, across the street, dodging cars with practiced ease. I can do nearly as well, and if a Buick tries to run me down (I wonder if Ferro moved here, and looks like one of those now), it doesn't _succeed_. No matter. I'm catching up.

And when I'm in spitting distance of the thief, considering tossing in just enough Essence to close the gap and grab, the damn ethereal cuts sideways and grabs the side of a passing train. One that never stopped at the station, isn't slowing down, and nice trick, asshole, but I can do that too. It's a little _tricky_ to grab the side of a moving train that must be doing whatever the ethereal equivalent of 80 mph is, but I am a part of Theft and I am _faster than you_.

The bastard scampers up onto the roof, so I pull myself up there too. Would've had trouble with that on the corporeal, wind blasting in my face and the train rattling beneath my hands and feet like bits of it want to come off, but I _know_ that I will stick to this thing, so. I do. That simple. The Marches don't care what some vessel stuck to a ball of dirt can do, they care as much as you're willing to convince them you do. Confidence is what lets me run across the top of the train, leap to the next car without so much as a wobble on landing. Focus of the mind is what lets me close the distance on this ethereal faster than it can create the distance between us.

Up ahead, the train's closing in on a tunnel. (Of course it is. Trains in cities need tunnels, for the metaphor and the threat and the light at the end.) I'm not sure there's enough clearance for train and anyone on top to both get through, and I'm not sure I can make that oncoming wall disappear in a Domain this solid, but I want that bag _back_.

The ethereal flings the backpack at me when I'm three steps away, two seconds from the tunnel, and jumps off the side of the train.

Catch the bag. Leap off the side. Slam against the wall so hard that _hurts_ , probably not real damage, hurts anyway, tuck and roll and roll to my feet and make sure I'm not standing on another set of tracks, and, hey.

That went okay.

I fix the straps on my backpack, and stroll back towards the station, the street with the cafes. Zhune meets me a third of the way there.

"The fuck," he says, and drops an arm around my shoulders that could look like comfort from a safe distance but is all about shoving me in the direction he wants me to go. "You can't just run off like that. Not around here."

"We need this, Zhune."

"No. It's stuff. Stuff never matters unless someone else wants it. We can work with empty hands and our own fucking cleverness if we need to, but we cannot get _separated_ around here. What were you trying to do?" He doesn't want to stroll back to the street, he wants to stalk, so I pick up my pace to keep up with him. I could make an issue of the shoving around. Not worth it. Won't. "Stick close by before you get yourself smeared across a wall."

"Like that would happen. I had plenty of time to move."

"And yet," he says, "you still hit the wall."

"It's not my fault if you can't keep up," I say, and catch the flick of a tail behind a blur on the sidewalk. Focus, and it's that man I saw before, watching the two of us thoughtfully. "Stick close, and hope the other one's not a Seraph," I say, much more quietly. Or a Malakite, but I don't think any Archangel would be dumb enough to send a Malakite on a job like this. All the smiting would get in the way of accomplishing anything.

 

I get the impression that Zhune is not real happy with this, but he can tell when we're on the job, so he shuts up, sticks close, and does not say anything incriminating while I approach the pair and say, "Hey, want to talk? I think we can help each other out."

The woman looks us over thoughtfully, and if that wasn't resonance use, I'll eat my hat. (Guess I'd have to retrieve it from the alley, or dream up a new one.) "Really? How so?"

I wave to the nearest obligatory alleyway. "Want to talk? No sudden attacks, I promise. I just get the feeling you're heading our way, and it'll be easier with four than two."

She exchanges a look with her Cherub, and when he inclines his head, she says, "Why not?"

I wonder if she's trying to hit her question quota too. Hypothetical questions don't count. There needs to be an answer given in return, whether or not it's a lie.

We step together into the alleyway, Zhune looming behind me in much the same way that this man is hovering around his partner. (Partner, friend, lover, attuned, coworker... Whatever you want to call the relationship. I'd bet on at least two of the above, and maybe all.) I stretch a bit of silence out around us, and watch how the Cherub tenses when the sound of the city quiets. Guess it's reasonable to be a little twitchy when trying to protect someone in a place as strange as this, but I get the feeling he's not from Dreams.

"Right," I say. "No one's going to be listening in on us except maybe the master of the Domain, and I figure they have more interesting things to do. And they probably know what all of us are, already, because you don't hold onto a Domain this big without paying attention to celestials waltzing in. Are you going to the auction?"

Another shared look, and the woman says, "Yes. Are you?"

"That's the plan. But we need a table of four to get in, following the map we have."

"And you've picked...us," she says, not sounding entirely suspicious, but she's not biting yet, either. That's okay. Anything people are convinced of easily, they can disbelieve just as easily. Once they've been sold on an idea properly, they're a lot less likely to change their minds.

"And I can spot a Cherub twigging on danger sense from a mile away," I say, with an easy smile (not the toothy kind) for the two of them, especially the man with the staff he's now holding in that tail. (I wonder if I could use a prehensile tail, if I dreamed one up. Probably best not to complicate my body coordination if I've never used one before.) "I won't be the only one who can, so let's all hope there's not a lot of danger downstairs at the auction. I know there's at least one set of demons showing up, probably two. Maybe more, but at a certain point they all start shredding each other, which saves the rest of us some time, so maybe we _should_ be hoping for that. Dreams, or someone else?"

"Trade," says the woman, brisk and direct now without checking in with her partner. "And you?"

"Wind," I say, and let my smile turn sharper. Guess I get to figure out whether or not she's a Seraph, now. But I'm betting no. She doesn't move like a Seraph. An Elohite would be a problem, creepy cold-hearted mind-readers that they are, but I'm rating that probability as low. (And if it turns out to be true, well, she can go play with the Habbalite. See how that turns out.) "What can I say? We heard news of the auction, and I've always liked heist movies."

Zhune sighs quietly behind me. So he is backing me up, because if he weren't, he wouldn't be playing the put-upon Cherub so well. I suspect he's trading suspicious glances over our heads with the Trade Cherub, given the direction of that man's gaze.

"And what are the chances," the woman asks, "that you'll be trying to run off with something on auction?"

"High! But not the main feature, because the god sponsoring the auction would chew us up and spit us out if we tried that. So if that's your goal..." I shrug one shoulder, and try to temper my inclination to smile like I'm about to go for someone's throat. I'm not sure that's a very angelic look. Maybe on Malakim, and I can't fake being one of those for any useful period of time. "If we pull down any trouble you don't want to deal with, you can pretend you had no idea it was going to happen. That's fair, isn't it?"

This time she does look to the Cherub. Who looks over us. Nice try, but that's not a resonance that can do a damn thing to me, unless he's secretly with Judgment. Which seems pretty damn unlikely. This is not their kind of game. "If you can get us to the auction," he says, "we could split up there. Besides, it's useful to know where potential allies are."

The woman offers a hand. "Catherine," she says, and it's all I can do to not twitch. It's. Not that unusual a name. Never mind that. "Mercurian of Trade."

So the handshake is a test. I shake, leaving a smear of blood across her palm, and say breezily, "You can call me Leah. Ofanite of the Wind. And, yes, the background is odd, but he and I have been through a few odd places before we got here." I look back over my shoulder at Zhune. "John?" He nods, and he does not look Djinnish at all, even while watching the other two narrowly. He looks exactly like a Cherub of Judgment who is not convinced this is a good plan. Close enough. "Yeah, so you can call him John, and figure out the rest pretty easily."

Her Cherub nods politely, and does not offer a hand. I think the two of us are the only ones getting handshakes in this process. "Vaina," he says. "Cherub of Waters, currently in service to Dreams."

"Waters?" Zhune steps forward, and does offer the Cherub a handshake now, which is something I can't quite understand. Neither of them has any reason to attune to the other, nor gets any useful information out of the process. All it does is turn the both of them bloody-handed at once. "I haven't met anyone from Waters since. Mm. Long before I started this job."

Cherub and Djinn shake like they're testing out each other's grip. "Not a pleasant meeting, I gather," Vaina says, with an unexpected note of sympathy to how he says it.

"No," Zhune says briskly. "But that was a long time ago. Nice work with that car bomb. How did you spot where that danger would be coming from?"

"No one new was approaching," Vaina said, "and we weren't near enough doors or alleyways to have triggered the warning from such a direction. Also, it's the third car bomb we've passed since we reached the city, so I've begun to...watch for cars. You just arrived?" He accepts a handkerchief the Mercurian passes him, and wipes his hands clean.

She offers me one as well. How...polite. And unlike all this rain, it gets my hands clean, then my face. I pass it on to Zhune in turn. Why didn't I think of that?

"A few hours ago," Zhune said. "We ran into a little trouble in one alleway, but it's been quiet otherwise. Did you come by the skyway?"

"Two days ago. We had an escort that far, but they had other business to attend to." Vaina glances back to the muted street, and his mouth twists into a wry smile. "We've been trying to find the right cafe to enter. Most of them start to make me nervous if Catherine steps too near the door."

"The city's full of trapped doors," I say. "They may cluster in this area. It would make sense, with all the tourists arriving by train, or heading for the train station. Easy prey. Let's check..." I stop and think about it. This city believes in visuals, textures, far more strongly than it believes in sound or smell. (I'm not sure I've smelled anything since I reached this city, no matter what I saw. Interesting thought. The beer tasted mediocre, but I thought that was just my lack of knowledge about making good beer, imaginary or otherwise.) "Windows and signs. We're looking for one dry cafe by the train tracks, and it's going to give us a visual clue. A clever reference in the name, or an actual patch of dry sidewalk under an overhang. Something like that."

Catherine snaps her fingers. "The Oasis. We passed that one. What do you think?"

"A bad joke? Probably," I say, and I am not having any problem with her name. She looks nothing at all like Katherine, not even like what Katherine would look like all grown up. "If you can find it again--"

"With that horrible sign? Easily." Her smile's clever and fast, and I have to remember that expression to copy it later. It works well with a female vessel. "However, we thought it would try to eat us." Vaina nods to what she says. "Think it'll work with a party of four?"

"It's worth a try," I say, and Zhune puts a hand on my shoulder.

"You are not walking in there first," he says. "I think we've had quite enough running away from your partner for the day, don't you?"

...he is going to work this pseudo-Cherub angle for every excuse to keep me under control. Isn't he. Yes he damn well is, and I can't blame anyone for this but myself. "You say that," I tell him, "like you expect me to _stop_ running away," and he gets a much sharper smile from me. Yeah, there's going to be an accounting between us when this job is done. Professional focus now, personal shouting match later. There will be explosions.

But right now we are perfect little _angels_.


	17. An Interlude, In Which We Start Getting Places

Vaina was not greatly pleased with the notion that his attuned ought to approach the door of The Oasis first. However, as the Servitors of Wind appeared to be having a constant, mostly unspoken debate in process about how far the Ofanite could move from her partner before being reeled back in to safety, he could not find any useful way to object. As Catherine's approach to the door gave him none of the deep concern it had last time, he stepped ahead and led the group inside.

The cafe inside was dry like bone, and in stepping foot inside he felt all the chill of rain fade away from his skin and clothing, leaving him hot and dry, head to tail to toe, as if he stood in a desert. His throat ached. A human-shaped creature whose form he could not make out well stood in front of them, arms full of menus, and asked, "How many?"

"Table for four," said the Ofanite, slipping forward to stand at his elbow. "What's the specialty?"

The indistinct creature turned away, and led them through the cafe. The restaurant? Vaina did not feel entirely comfortable with applying one word or another to these modern concepts. A place of empty tables stretching away as far as the eye could see, bounded on left and right by rows of booths. The...figment, he suspected, indicated a booth marked with a street sign embedded in the table, and waited for all of them to sit. "Your server will be with you shortly," it said, and walked away. It disappeared while he was looking at it. He could no longer see the entrance, and perhaps it was back there.

"So," said the Ofanite, and he turned to look at her across the table. They had taken their seats in what was perhaps the natural order of things, attuned on the inside with their respective Cherubim on the outside. A defensive formation. "I'm not a Mercurian, so tell me about yourselves."

The Wind had changed over the millennia. Inevitable in every Word, he was told. (What had happened to Gabriel? Explanations of that confused him, even in the language of Heaven.) Its current reputation, made of _thief_ and _mischief_ and _stirring up trouble_ , was not what he remembered. Within sight of the _chaos from stagnation_ and _push them to think_ and _save them from where they're stuck_ that he remembered, but...not the same. And so he saw these two, and wondered.

The Cherub, now, that he could understand. The modern clothing, the animal skin, the black sword and the silver watch, these made sense. Challenge preconceptions of what made a unified whole. Remember what is ancient, and continue to move. He found the man's face hard to read. (He was hard pressed to think of the man as "John", for all that one might as well accept an obvious pseudonym, as he still thought of the name as belonging to a tribe near a particular ocean, and not a name for the high mountains where this man's face belonged. But as the Wind would tell him, the world moved on.) There was always a small contradiction in a Cherub of the Wind, much as with the Ofanim of Stone, and he found this one no challenge to conceptualize.

The Ofanite was more peculiar. Bright-eyed and bright-haired, the latter almost a callback to the fire of celestial rings. Small, slim, fast, no, those were all _Ofanite_ traits. Her clothing was torn in a way that made him think of Calabim, but with a regularity that spoke of modern fashion, of _choice_. The Wind could be destructive, a deliberate pointed destruction, and there was nothing wrong with that. And that would, perhaps, explain the bloody hands, bloody face, she greeted them with. Perhaps it was nothing, but he did not like the look in her eyes. Friendly, yes, but it made him want to wrap an arm around Catherine and watch for the exits.

"--and time in service to Dreams," Catherine was saying. He had lost track of her answer, in the midst of his thoughts. In the midst of looking for danger in what other angels might do. (His therapist had said, _Caution is healthy for a Guardian, but be mindful of paranoia._ Which made no sense. Mindfulness made him alert to more dangers.) "Frankly, I think they would have sent a Seraph if there was one up for the job available at the time, but Seraphim of Trade with Marches experience and the mindset to not be frustrated by dealing with ethereals at length isn't hard to find."

"I can think of one," said the Ofanite, who was nothing like a Leah either, but he had to let go of this problem with names. The world moved on, changed by human hands, celestial powers, and the wear of natural forces. "But maybe he's busy. I think he's a pretty busy man. I call him up once in a while just to harass him and remind him to take a break from work. Is that a Trade thing? All the obsession with work?"

"No," Catherine said, "that's Lightning. _We_ remember to schedule vacations."

"God," Leah said. "Scheduling vacations. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it? John, remind me when we get back to swing through Hawai'i again."

"If you think I'm ever taking you on a transoceanic flight again," said the Cherub, "you're sorely mistaken."

"Like you'd ever pitch me out the emergency exit," Leah said, and turned a brilliant smile on Catherine. " _You_ could take me to Hawai'i instead, but by the time you got it onto your schedule, I'd be distracted. Remind me to leave you a note for that Seraph before we split up again, or I'll never remember. So what about you? Much time spent with Dreams? I was expecting to run into them more than Trade, if anyone."

That last part was to him. Vaina pulled himself back to the matter of social conventions. (He liked people. But manners had changed. There had been classes, and practice, and discussions, and...manners had changed. Had always been different in different parts of the world, and the world moved on.) "I spent a few years assisting Dreams," he said, "a long time ago. Strictly on the corporeal. I have always been--a Servitor of Waters." If he stopped there, the Ofanite would ask questions, the ones everyone did, and so he kept going to the answers that were necessary. One would think it would become easier with practice. "When I fell into Trauma for the first time, I...stayed there. For a very long time. When I woke, my Archangel was gone. I woke a few years ago. For all that I'm twenty times Catherine's age, she's the senior in general experience and that in the Marches."

"That must have been strange," Leah said, smile disappearing, and he saw the way her Cherub glanced down at her. As if there was history there, and of course there would be. Everyone had history. Sometimes their history was simply...very distant. "I'm--well. It wouldn't have worked like that--where I worked before."

Vaina looked for the question implied in that statement, and could not identify it. "They would not let an Orphan remain what he was, when you were in Hell?"

"Oh," she said, and laughed shortly. "No, not _that_ , either. I meant staying thousands of years in Trauma without being disassembled for Essence and Forces. Sorry," she said, with a sideways kind of smile. "There are some cultural shock issues remaining. I expect Judgment would rather I not run around in the Marches at _all_ , when I could be, I don't know, getting lectured or something. But I'm not dissonant, and I don't think I'm any of their business. This gig will do me a lot more good than anything they might have in mind, and _they're_ not the boss of me."

Her Cherub only looked down at the top of her head, and shared a wry look with Vaina across the table. Yes, well. One could not lock an attuned up in a safe room and keep them there forever. It was as much a betrayal as to let them wander and never follow after. Cherubim followed. It was in their nature, and he could not regret that.

"I suppose Judgment might agree," Catherine said, "but I don't intend to bother them about this meeting. It's really none of their business."

The Ofanite smiled back at Catherine, and Vaina wondered absently if the two of them were flirting. "Much appreciated. I always know I can count on Trade. And--does anyone else think our waiter should've appeared by now?"

"Yes," John said. "Bad service, or a trap?"

Leah shook her head, hair flying into disarray. No more disarray than before; she had chosen some sort of deliberate mess, a statement of Wind if he had ever seen one. "We've forgotten a step. Three questions, Fourth Street, the descent to the underworld..." She snapped her fingers. "Statement of intent. I'm making it to that auction on time, to get what I came for."

"Of course," Catherine said. "Defining the story--"

"--which is a bit clumsy when you get that explicit, but if Hawthorne can get away with concrete metaphors in the first chapter--"

"--well, it is the Marches, they like the explicit, and if you want to only let in the people who are serious, and keep out the stragglers--"

"--it's a _thematic_ statement," Leah said, and grinned toothily at Catherine. "You have to want it enough to admit you do. Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the auction," Catherine said, "to make a bid for what we're seeking." She looked to Vaina, and he knew his cue.

"I'm going to the auction," he said, "because I'm following you, and I mean to keep you safe."

The Cherub across the table sighed, and looked down at his partner. "I'm going to the auction," he said, "because you dragged me into this."

"Don't pretend you don't love it," Leah said, and turned that dazzling, dangerous smile on the waiter who stood by the table. "Party of four," she said, "and we're ready to order."


	18. In Which We Descend Into Some Sort Of Underworld, Depending On How You Look At It

The waiter leans over our table, and flips the street sign over in the center. I thought it was locked in place, but it spins wildly, and when it clicks back into stability again, it doesn't say Fourth Street anymore, but Going Down. "If the ladies and gentlemen would be so kind as to stand," the waiter tells us. We're no longer in any sort of semi-infinite cafe, but seated at a table in the center of an elevator the size of my first dorm room. An old-fashioned elevator, which I expect doesn't have any good failsafes built in. 

I slide out of my seat, Zhune following right behind, and once all four of us are standing, the seats and table vanish. The waiter--dressed in red with shiny buttons down the front--steps away to stand by the the open door. He pulls one of several levers by the door, and a grate closes over it. "Destination?"

"The auction," Catherine says, and receives nothing but a level stare.

I take out the paper Pumpkinhead drew for me, and look down the instructions to where we are now. All that's showing for this part is an arrow. "Going down," I say.

"Very well." The waiter, elevator operator, whatever his nature is, picks out a lever. "Going down. Expected transit time: ten days, ten nights."

"What about--" Zhune begins, and I'm a little bit alarmed at this statement too, because our dissonance condition is not going to be very pleased if we sit in an elevator for _ten days_ , but he doesn't get to finish the sentence, because the waiter pulls the lever. The floor disappears from beneath us.

We fall.

For three breathless seconds we're falling through an elevator shaft. Zhune's hand locks onto my wrist, and the Cherub has his arms wrapped around his Mercurian, twisting about so that when we land, he'll be the one below. Tail spinning about like a cat's, like he can restore balance this way.

The elevator shaft disappears, and we're falling through a night sky, the stars brilliant around us. Sky above and sky below, no hint of the ground or distance or anything but that sensation that we're being pulled down.

"I don't--" Vaina looks over to us, no, over to Zhune, and his voice isn't caught by the wind at all. Speaking as normally as if we were still standing in the elevator, even though this is freefall if I've any notion of how it would feel. (Dreams of falling. Of course. I wonder how they layer up.) "I don't feel any _danger_ , not from this," Vaina says, confused and hopeful all at once.

Zhune shrugs, and doesn't let go of my wrist. "The Marches are a strange place," he says.

"And the terrain is only damaging to the mind if the Domain's master so wills it," Catherine says. She's taking this very calmly, so why shouldn't I? We share a quick smile. Yeah. We understand this stuff. "Descent into the underworld?"

My first lit professor, standing in front of the board, writing down the terms for the steps on the journey. "Katabasis," I say. "How far down do you think we're going?"

"Ten and a half days worth." She waves a hand in my direction, and I grab her hand. All four of us falling down, but we're together. "Did you ever learn Greek?"

"No, never had the time." Her hand wraps around my wrist, mine on hers, and I think for a moment that Vaina and Zhune will end up linked. But, no. They only hold on to their respective attuned. No one here is forgetting that this is an alliance of convenience. "Maybe in another decade." If I live that long. "I hope someone packed a book, because if we're stuck falling for ten days, I'm going to get bored."

"God help us all," Zhune mutters. "You can't dream up entertainment for yourself?"

I hold out a hand, and imagine a tiny sphere of fire within it. And--it's there for an instant, then snatched away by our fall. It disappears above us, a point of light dwindling away until it's indistinguishable from the stars. "Guess not. Want me to start summarizing the Bronte sister oeuvre? I can quote all the best lines at the appropriate places."

Zhune gives me a terribly pained look. "How much would it cost for you to _not_ do this?"

"I'm not familiar with those," Vaina says. "I wouldn't mind--" But it's his turn to cut off again, and Catherine's hand tenses against my wrist, her pulse jumping. "Ah."

"Well, that explains it," Catherine says, and I need to know what she means. What hit both of them at once, and didn't twig for either of us. This plan will break apart fast if there's something this Domain is doing to sort out incoming celestials. I can make new plans, but I liked this one. It was clever and entertaining, and not half as risky as what we're likely to need to get anything done against that Habbalite.

"Was anyone timing that?" Vaina asks, and I finally understand what he's talking about. Two angels just got hit with dawn Essence, sooner than they were expecting. Which means we're probably running through a fast-time Domain of some sort.

"Catherine," I say, with a tight little smile that's more authentic than I might like, "do you have any idea how Marches time interacts with, let's talk hypothetically here, time-based dissonance conditions?"

"Not...exactly," she says. "Though if we're moving this fast, we're probably moving through some sort of distance?" And now Zhune understands too, his hand locked on my wrist like a handcuff. "It might also work on relative time. Lightning has done some interesting studies based on how those things sort of shut off during Trauma, and there are potential similarities."

"Based on my experience, this is not a hell of a lot like Trauma." Which is for the best. I try to spin myself around to see what's coming up below, because that's light below us, and I hope it's not hard land. As I learned early on in Hell, "not very damaging" and "hideously painful" can coexist easily.

Essence hits me. Dawn to dusk, Marches time, that fast? Then ten days isn't so long to fall, and this is going to become rapidly horrible if Valefor has decided three days in one place counts by outside days, not subjective ones. Three notes of dissonance would hurt. Three notes of dissonance would make it hard to blow things up with my mind, hard to get any Essence back, it's more than I've ever picked up at once and there is _no point_ in thinking about this until the third day hits us and I find out how this will go.

The sky brightens around us, dark night shading through grays and purples into a brilliant sunrise. Or sunrise colors, because there's no direction for a sun, only reds and pinks smearing through the sky on all sides around us, above and below. "So the Domain's time doesn't even try to match to real time," Catherine says. "I wish I could take better notes on this. Vaina, are you full up? We ought to send a progress report, if this place means to drop Essence into us like this. Especially if we're hitting radio silence for ten days."

"Full," Vaina says, and hums out what I recognize after a few bars as Tongues, in the celestial flavor. Then a second time, and he says, "If you would," and she says, "Of course," and I assume Essence passes around.

"Do you need anything?" Catherine asks me, and for one wild moment I am horribly tempted to ask her to send a message to Penny. Just, you know. Hi, how are you doing, hope everything's well, I'm having a _grand_ time in the Marches.

But what are the chances that Vaina has met him, to be able to send the message? And what are the chances that with nine more days of this fall to go, he'd be able to track down someone with the same Song who knows one of these two, and send back a really _inconvenient_ message?

(Or what if he sent a message to me directly? No. If he knew that Song, he'd have called before. He's never been the one who breaks contact, when he can get it.)

"Thanks, but no thanks," I say. "It's not exactly a job we need to check in over."

"So I'm gathering," Catherine says. "What are the chances that someone will want to be very stern at us over this incident after we split up again?"

If I'm not careful, I'm going to burst out laughing. "I guess it depends on whether or not we split up as soon as we hit the auction," I say, and get another burst of Essence. Should've used some on chasing that thief after all. I hate to waste Essence by pulling in more after I'm full, but what am I supposed to do with it while falling? (The sky around us is shading to a stunning dark blue, and clouds are finally appearing.) I know two Songs, and neither turning invisible nor deafening everyone would be very useful right now. "Anyway, yeah, the chances are high."

"Oh, the horror," Vaina murmurs, and I think that was amusement. Which makes me wonder exactly what kind of reading his Archangel had on Waters, back when it was still around. I've never really understood the elemental Words of Heaven, because the only one we have in Hell is Fire, and that's...simple. Exactly what it says on the label. But then in Heaven they take up these big primal concepts and I can't figure out how they get there from here, how Wind turns into Theft Lite, how Stone turns into Pseudo-Pacifist Factions, how Lightning turns into All Tech All The Time when you'd think it would just be a subset of Wind.

None of my business. I watch the sky shift around us, clouds melting away as the blue brightens and the heat cranks up. I could almost be back in my first Role, walking across campus between classes in the summer, squinting up at that sky and wondering what the Seneschal would do to me the next time I stopped by for an assignment. I could, come to think of it, almost miss Regan again. Turns out that with a little work a Djinn can mess with your head just as much as a Balseraph, anyway.

Third burst of Essence, and the two angels are carefully not asking any questions, watching our descent like they're not wondering whether or not we're taking dissonance. Since they think we picked up that time-marker with them. I'm not going to be sure until the fourth. "Hey," I say, and point with my chin since both my hands are still taken, "mountains."

"Do you think we'll hit them?" Catherine asks conversationally, and we all look down at the white peaks rushing towards us. "I'm not sure how this counts as an underworld if we end up at the top of a mountain."

"There are mountains in Stygia," I say, which is true, though there's no sky. (And there's Ash's voice in my head. _Look at that sky. It goes all the way up._ But so what? Everyone knows the corporeal's more fun than Hell.) "So I wouldn't rule it out either way."

"Fortunately," Catherine says, "I believe our metaphor isn't tied to that reality. More to human conceptions of this sort of thing." Fourth burst of Essence, and I could almost laugh, because we are in the _clear_. I'm not going to end up trying to explain Word dissonance to my Prince after all, not this week.

"Let me check something," I say, and detach my hand from Catherine's. She might've been checking as deep as her resonance goes all this time, but even Mercurians can only pick up so much. It's a fight against the wind (that doesn't care about our words, doesn't even sweep Catherine's hat away, but cares about this) to get Pumpkinhead's directions out without the paper being swept from my hand. "I'm not sure we're actually pointed at human conceptions."

"What?" Catherine blinks at me, and tries to look at the paper, but it's tangling itself around my hand. I stow it away, and take her hand again. "I've heard there are some strange places built on the dreams of machines, but only rumors, and this looks nothing like them."

"No," Vaina says, with an odd tone to his voice, "look down."

The mountains streak past us, then pine trees with enormous branches and needles the length of my arm. Nothing in reach of us, as if the terrain is splitting apart beneath us to let us fall on. I spin about between the two hands that hold me, and I can look down to where we're pointing. (Fifth. Sixth. Essence sliding off the edges of me as we flash past a series of days so fast I can't time the spaces between me anymore.) A gray-green patch beneath us, streaked in thin lines of pale gray, and growing nearer (or larger, I can no longer tell the difference) every second.

Zhune's fingers tighten painfully on my wrist, and we hit the water hard.


	19. An Interlude, In Which Some People's Relationships With Their Employers Are Less Fraught Than Mine

"I enjoy looking at the numbers," said the Soldier, a fork of pasta suspended for a moment in front of her while she thought over how to answer Penny's question. "I know, it's the geekiest thing, and most people go for the pictures and stories, but I mostly ignore those. I look at the numbers of what I've given out, and what's been returned, and what I gave out again, and what will be coming back into the account to be loaned out again, and it...feels right. Like I'm part of something bigger, like there's hope for the future... I don't know, does that make any sense?"

"It does," Penny said. He seldom bothered to eat on the corporeal, having no Role to maintain. (Coffee was another matter.) But when he made the appointment, the Soldier had sent him an email with three restaurants she wanted to try, and he had picked one. Once there it would have been impolite not to order, especially as he was the one paying for the meal, and so he had picked something almost at random. And it was...delicious, in that peculiar corporeal manner where he pretended to be human and the Symphony agreed he might as well. Whatever his preferences in Heaven, his vessel found the meal agreeable. "How long have you been working for us?"

"Almost sixteen years now," she said, between tidy bits of her lunch. "We're coming up on the anniversary of it, speaking of numbers. I have a date with the Malakite who recruited me, next weekend. A nice little bed and breakfast in the foothills." She smiled at him, exactly the way Mercurians did. He found humans much like Mercurians, and the reverse, especially among Soldiers of God. Difficult to understand at times, but so much better at seeing the sorts of things that could not be divided in to True and Not True. "How about you? When did you turn into a proper Trader?"

"The moment I was made," he said. "I have never been otherwise."

"Do you regret that?" she asked. "Not having a childhood, or making a decision about what you wanted to be?"

"No," he said. "I've had many types of regrets, but never that one."

Her phone beeped, and she picked it up to check the alarm. "Here comes the appointment. Say hello for me?"

He nodded, and she blinked twice, then smiled at him again. Exactly the way a Mercurian would. "How are you doing?" asked his Archangel.

"Not as well as I would like," Penny said. "Ah, the Soldier asked that I say hello for her."

"Hello right back, and let her know she's doing a good job," Marc said. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin on clasped hands. "But you're the one with the appointment. Tell me what has you worried, Penny."

Penny looked down at his plate. "I feel...tangled. Almost as if I've compromised myself with too many promises, or contracts that contradict each other, though I have not. To my knowledge. It's entirely the result of the conflict between what I wish to do and what it seems I ought, without any promises involved."

"You know," Marc said, and reached across the table to take one of Penny's hands in hers, "I only hold you to the promises you make to other people. That's fair. But that doesn't keep you from...well, you know how my Brights can be about self-Geasing, don't you? Almost like Malakim. If you made the promise to yourself, you will feel obliged."

"I do," Penny said, and the hand over his gave comfort. He had not realized until that moment how desperately he needed it. "Should I not?"

"If I meant you to be objective," Marc said, "I would've made you as an Elohite. I made you as _you_ , and if you're being true to yourself, then you're not going wrong." She patted his hand, and sat back. "What do you need out of this situation?"

"To pull him in to us," Penny said, because this was true.

Marc shook her head. "We don't drag anyone in, Penny. We offer them the hand up, but they have to _accept_ it. No contract made under duress is valid. Do you need help divesting yourself of this connection?"

That was the offer, wasn't it? Because all he had to do was was ask. _I made the wrong promise. I signed the wrong contract. Help me out of this._ As simple as asking, though he had told Leo once, sometimes the answer is no.

"No," Penny said. "I only need...confirmation. That I'm not doing this horribly wrong."

"You're doing a good job," Marc said, "but you're choosing to make risky investments. I don't read the future. I can't promise that this will pay off more than it already has. Which, for the record, has been a good return on investment already. Don't forget that. You've done better than broken even."

"I want," Penny said, "that hundred percent profit."

"Then you have my permission to keep trying. But try to be _careful_ about it, because I don't want to lose you." Marc slid a shiny copper disk across the table with one finger. "Anything else?" Penny shook his head. "Then I'd better move. It's always good to see you."

The Soldier blinked a few times, and got back to eating her pasta. "How did it go?"

"Well," Penny said. "I was asked to let you know that you're doing a good job."

"Always nice to know," said the Soldier, looking rather pleased at the message.

"Yes," Penny said, and examined the copper disc. Exactly the size and shape of an American penny, except for the image on each side: a coiled Seraph, and a wheel of fire. A small, simple token, which he could find again wherever it might turn up. "It is good to know."


	20. In Which I Am Not Amused

Zhune wraps both arms around me, and I can't hold onto Catherine's hand anymore. More to the point: not sure if breathing in water is a good idea, but the "if" part is rapidly turning into "when" because we are _still falling_. Through the water, light dimming overhead as the sky pulls away from us, and I can see every one of us four perfectly clearly, but I cannot see what's below. Darkness, and dark shapes.

"It's safe," Vaina says, bubbles streaming from his mouth as he speaks. "This won't hurt you." He takes both hands to one of Catherine's, kicks himself about to address her directly, and he doesn't move like a human in the water. I don't know what he moves like, but he's as easy in that twist and turn as I am in cutting an illegal left turn with a stolen car. "Like you said, if the master of the Domain doesn't wish the terrain to be harmful, it won't be. Breathe."

Catherine is wearing a deeply dubious expression, but she trusts her Cherub. (Of course she does. He's not working for Judgment.) Her chest heaves as she draws in a deliberate breath. And she coughs, bubbles spraying around her, but she says, "That feels so _strange_."

Zhune claps a hand over my mouth, and I don't even know what that means. I wasn't going to say anything incriminating, and why should I? This is straight up standard weird ethereal stuff. And no matter how unreal this might be, there's a burning sensation growing in my lungs. This Domain wants us to--not drown. To breathe in. To act like we _belong_. Which I can't do with Zhune trying to keep my mouth and nose covered and holding on so tightly that I can't wiggle free without throwing some effort into it. The kind of effort that might hurt him. 

Vaina sweeps in near us, a single smooth move, and he puts a hand on Zhune's shoulder. "Trust me," he says, locking eyes with my partner. "Breathing this will not hurt her. I swear it is so."

Zhune. Does not let go of me. And I am about a half second away from kicking him where it hurts, no matter what the angels will think, when he finally slides his hand off my face.

Breathing in water does feel strange. Slippery and cold and all wrong, a sudden punch of memory--standing in front of Captain Savas with my own blood filling my mouth again because he didn't like what I'd just said. A different salt tang, this. "Relax," I say to my partner, because all he's letting go of is my mouth, not his death grip on me. "We'll be fine. We're just following the map."

"I do not like this map," Zhune says tightly, and I can't even tell if he's trying to fake the Cherub thing or just deeply unhappy for some reason I can't identify. Which...worries me, usually if he's unhappy I know exactly why. "I do not like this job, and we are leaving the instant it's done."

I don't think he wants the sympathy of angels, either, but he's getting it. Poor Djinn. That has to smart. And maybe it's only that he's unhappy to be running this particular con, in an unfamiliar environment, but... I don't think that's it. Which means I need to figure this out, because we can't both be off cue and unsettled during this job.

Except I'm just fine, here, so it's more that I need to get my partner to relax, exactly like he's always telling me to. He ought to be enjoying this. He loves playing risky games, messing with angels, running the cons where no one sees what he really is. All this work to set up a game for him, and does he appreciate any of it? No. He can be so difficult to work with.

And the water's getting darker.

A handful of the moving blurs beneath us resolve suddenly into porpoises, three of them darting up to circle about us. All four of us have ended up huddled in together, falling with less of the horizontal spread we had through the air. Not _swimming_ , Vaina maybe aside, but sinking down through this imaginary ocean.

"Welcome," says one of the porpoises, its Helltongue accented with a whistling breathiness I've never heard on the language before. "Where can we direct you today? I don't recommend north. There are sharks to the north, and they breed faster than we can kill them, though if you want to lend us a hand, be our guest!"

"Do we have another language option?" Catherine asks the porpoise, and I don't think she's understood a word of that.

Then everyone looks at me, the angels at least with apologetic expressions, because I'm the one who's supposed to still remember how this language goes. And I get the impression it's some sort of angelic faux pas to ask me to use it.

"Any other language options?" I ask the porpoise. "The lady doesn't like it."

"If she doesn't like it, chum, she shouldn't be working for Murder Central," says another porpoise. "How about you? Want us to take these two off your hands? Like we don't know what all of you are. Our god sees things."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I say, and notice how Vaina and Catherine both shiver a little at every phrase they hear in this language. "Maybe later."

"Suit yourself," says a porpoise. "Mind, we don't much like you either, but we were expecting some of the riffraff to show when the news went out."

"We're your guides," says the first porpoise, "like it or not. Where are you going?" And I think they're laughing at me, as they swirl around us.

One shot at the right answer. "Going down," I say, and I _hope_ that was it, because they giggle, swirl about us, and the whirlpool drags us deeper.

"What was that?" Catherine calls. The swirl of water around us is obscuring vision, starting to obscure sound, and I'm not sure I made the right call. Never mind that. If I picked the wrong choice, I will shred my way out of whatever tries to hold me.

"They wanted more directions." Or a statement of intent. Or maybe that was the time to say, yes, straight to the auction, we're bidders. I've lost track of how many times Essence has hit, and this Geas has a time limit on it. What if I run past the two weeks allotted? This is already cutting it close. "I don't think they like us."

A giggling shape sweeps past me. "Got it in one, chum!"

"You know, if you bastards understand English anyway," I tell the whirlpool, raising my voice to be heard through it, "you could just say so."

"Funnier the other way," says a porpoise. "Besides, we're keeping your secrets. You should appreciate that."

Vaina makes a thoughtful noise, and then raises his voice and speaks--I don't know what. A sound that is clearly nothing in any human language, and can't possibly be angelic, but it's a _language_ , I know that much. And all the porpoises stop giggling.

"Wow," says one, after a long moment. "You're an old one, aren't you." Still in Helltongue. I wonder if I should translate.

"No one even speaks that language anymore," says another. "All the ones who did died in the Murder Spree, except for our god."

"Never mind," says the third. "We have a job to do." And they fall silent around us.

Vaina frowns a little, and shrugs to us. "I thought it might help," he says in a low voice. "What did they say?"

"That the language is older than they were," I say, and wiggle a little in Zhune's grip, because being held this close with no way to move is getting old. I'm tired of falling. I want to get some ground under my feet again. "And no one speaks it since--well, I assume they meant the Purity Crusade."

"Which someone would answer for," Vaina says, and for all that his expression is mild I believe this Cherub is _angry_ , "if he had not been recalled to the Higher Heavens."

"We all learn to let the past go," Zhune says, his chin resting on the top of my head. "Or we don't get anywhere. You should try it."

Vaina huffs out a sigh. I'm not sure where the new bubbles come from, to puff away from his nostrils and be caught up in the whirlpool around us. "The world moves on," he says, and I wonder what he and Zhune would talk about if they really _were_ two Cherubim. How to keep their attuned from walking into danger? Combat techniques? Knot and handcuff methods? (I suspect the only reason Zhune hasn't tied me to furniture periodically is that I'm a Calabite.)

The whirlpool vanishes around us, and there are no porpoises to be seen. Only a patch of darkness beneath us that's a little less dark, and a little nearer, and then we're touching down, feet catching on _ground_ again. About time. Water is not my element.

Zhune detaches enough that I can stand on my own with only his hand on my wrist. He's overplaying the Cherub thing; look at Vaina and Catherine, who seem able to walk side by side like no one needs to drag anyone else along. And we are walking, before I actually think about doing so. This is a path, and it wants to be walked on. Water above us, and I suspect much more below, but we have a sort of floor that extends forward.

Floor turns into corridor, so gradually that I'm not sure when the walls and ceiling appeared. We're walking through a hallway of water, then mist, and then what I think is air, for the way it feels going into my lungs. But only when I think about it. The Marches are good at Domains that only give you as much sensory data as you pay attention to. It remains theoretical until then.

"Welcome," says a voice from overhead, tinny as if it's coming through old speakers. Pleasant, female, speaking in English accented for a human from New Zealand. "You are approaching the ballroom, where the auction will occur at the appointed time. Translation services will be provided. Private rooms will be provided. Masks will be provided. Masks are mandatory within the ballroom at all times. The architecture and contents of the ballroom and private rooms are inviolate. Please do not engage in combat of the souls with other bidders or their servants until after leaving the ballroom. All goods brought for purposes of bidding must be assessed and totaled at the appropriate tables before the auction to be considered valid payment. All bidders must enter the ballroom for the first time in groups of four. Thank you for attending the auction. Auction services have been provided courtesy of the god of the whales."

"Well," Catherine says cautiously, once the speaker has gone silent, "that seems...clear." She fishes into a little purse and takes out a tiny notepad, a pen, and begins writing rapidly. "Wording is probably important, though maybe less so than otherwise given they're offering translation services. Note that they didn't forbid combat of the mind; I'd expect a few brawls and assassinations before the actual bidding starts. I wonder how literally they mean masks."

"Given the route so far," I say, "fairly. Let's just be glad it's not a full on costume party." I tuck my arm into Zhune's, and get him to let go of my hand. Easier now that we're not falling, apparently. "Did you bring enough for what you want on auction?"

The two of them exchange glances. "Perhaps," Catherine says, in exactly the way Penny might've said it. "We'll see how they rate what we have to offer. Depending on exactly what you're after, maybe we can pool some resources to get us all what we want."

"Maybe," I say, because two can play at that. "I guess it depends on who's bidding."

The corridor acquires an endpoint, breaking open into a tiny lobby. We're walking on marble floors now, and the walls are covered tacky wallpaper--seashells and seahorses, I'd be embarrassed to have it in any building I designed or inhabited--that's almost ominous in how horrible it is. Three identical ethereals, or possibly mere figments, wait for us: two by the door, one seated behind a table with a book laid on it. They're dressed in black vests and skirts, white shirts with ruffled collars and sleeves, and their skin is a perfectly even gray. Their faces are featureless smooth, except for a mouth in about the usual place.

"Welcome," says one of the two by the door, in the same voice as we heard in the hallway. She sounds just as tinny as she did there. "The attendant at the table will count up what you've brought."

Catherine breaks into a sunny smile, and strides off to the table promptly. She leans over and murmurs to the attendant, who flips open the book to consult some text within. Vaina gives Zhune and I an embarrassed sort of shrug. "While I hate to keep secrets..."

"No, I get it. Trade." I shrug back to him, and rock on my heels. Tired of standing around and falling and not getting to implement any plans. We're in a holding pattern until I know what that Habbalite is up to, and who she's brought with us. "I'm curious, but it's none of my business. And, hey." I grin at him, maybe a sharper smile than I meant, because it makes him look uneasy. "We're keeping some secrets too."

Catherine returns, smug in the way Zhune gets when he's about to reveal whatever ridiculous new job he's accepted for us and he expects me to plan a solution through. But what she says is, "That was a healthy total of points, if I follow the local economics well. Your turn."

Zhune and I step up to the table, even if we're not planning on putting in any real bids. If we can show off our point totals to other bidders, that might be useful. Or even trying to win one of the smaller items... I can't tell until I know more. The attendant smiles at us with her mouth and blank face. "What do you offer?"

I drop the backpack on the table. "Everything there," I say, and pull the necklace out from under my shirt. "This." I hold up my wrist with the watch on it. "And this." I stop there, never mind that Zhune gives me a sudden sidelong look. That knife is _mine_ , and I earned it fair and square. And I like the shoes. Not sure what they look like back on the corporeal, since I never matched up what in that box of junk went with what ability, but I want to keep them there. It's not any _Ofanite_ thing, despite his look. Just useful for the Theft part of my life.

The attendant sorts through the backpack with deft gray fingers, flipping back and forth in the book. She touches my necklace and watch once each, then writes down a number on a card. Presents it to me. I have no idea what the 34 means, but I suspect it's not great. (And what did Trade bring to this auction? I didn't see Catherine bring out any items. Knowledge, maybe. Trading in information the way the Lilim did.) "Thank you for your interest," she says. "If you wish to add any other goods or services to this total, please return to any entrance and tell the attendant at the table."

Zhune slips the knife out of where I've stowed it, and lays it across the table. "How much?"

"Fifteen," the attendant says. "Shall I add it to your total?"

"No," I say, and take the knife back. That's Zhune all over. He gives presents out freely, but only for as long as he wants me to have them, and then they're gone, replaced or missing or destroyed or used up for something else. I understand he's bone-deep Theft in a way I'll never be, but he doesn't have to express his disdain for object permanence on _my stuff_. "Thanks for the total."

We meet up with Vaina and Catherine at the door, where it looks like the attendants are holding steady to the requirement that bidders enter in groups of four. One attendant holds up a set of ordinary little keys hung from numbered brass discs. "How many rooms?"

One look between all of us gets us a fast consensus. "Two," I say, and I take one of the keys offered, Catherine the other. I almost wish I'd pretended to be a Mercurian too. It'd be easier to fake in some ways than this Ofanite thing, because while no one's been looking suspicious, I keep forgetting to keep up what I've seen Ofanim do. The twitching and pacing and endless, annoying refusal to sit down like a normal person for five minutes. Maybe falling would be enough speed for one of them. I don't know how they work. They don't work like _me_ , which is the important point.

"Masks will be provided," says the second attendant, and holds up a bag. Vaina steps forward first, the Cherub testing the waters before letting anything strange or new touch his attuned. The attendant reaches into the bag, and takes out a leather mask formed and painted as two koi swirling around the holes for the eyes, one gold and white, one black and silver. 

Vaina ties the mask in place, and looks back to us, his smile wry. "Ah," he says. "Themes."

I wonder if this is going to be a problem. Guess we'll find out. If it comes down to it, the rules did say no celestial combat, and they need to get inside as much as we do.

Catherine puts out a hand, and the mask taken from the bag for her covers her full face, all delicate gold wire woven into the shape of a human face that isn't quite hers. When she ties it on, a string of jingling coins dangles from each cheek. "I suppose I can't be surprised," she says, her expression hidden through the gold weave.

Zhune steps forward, sliding his arm out of mine only to lock a hand around my wrist. He cannot hold onto me during this _entire job_. Ninety percent of our plans require we split up along the way. The attendant reaches into the bag, and takes her hand out empty. She takes the jaw of the jaguar skin hanging over his forehead, and tugs it down. When she lets go, the skin has formed a mask over his face, his eyes shining through the eyes of the jaguar, its jaws snarling over his mouth.

Which leaves me. The attendant looks me up and down--insofar as someone without eyes can--and reaches into her bag. She takes out a pair of sunglasses, and offers them to me. Sleek. Rectangular. Dark gray, not black. They're elegant and look expensive, like something I'd find an Impudite or Lilim of Lust wearing, or maybe even someone in Trade, but this has nothing to do with me.

"That," I say, "is not a mask."

She offers me the sunglasses, and--the angels are watching, the more fuss I make, the more they're going to wonder. "Masks will be provided," she repeats firmly, so what else is there to do? I take the sunglasses, slip them on. They don't shade the room around me any darker. As far as my vision is concerned, I'm wearing nothing at all.

The attendants step away from the doors, and we walk into the ballroom.

We stand at a balcony, one of dozens circling the sphere at the center of the ballroom. Ball...sphere. These balconies don't stack up and down, but spin around that central point like rubber bands around a ball, with gravity holding the people on them attached in whichever direction the balcony cares to be. Broad loops of dance flooring circle the central sphere nearer in, and even though I have been in the Marches before, the visuals are hurting my mind. I can see the people down on those floors, on the balconies, the attendant standing in the central sphere (and perhaps she's the source of the music I hear, because she gestures as if she's singing), I can see everything as if there is nothing in the way, and I can see all these loops that ought to be blocking my view in two dozen places at once.

"I think," Catherine says quietly, "that I might throw up."

"Do you need a bucket?" Vaina asks.

I squeeze Zhune's hand to reassure him that no one is about to topple over into space, and step forward to the edge of the balcony. At doors in balconies throughout the edges of this sphere, people are stepping forward in groups of four. Some splitting immediately in several directions, some keeping together... Yes, we all had to make our own parties to get in here. On the far side of the sphere there is a small figure wearing a mask of rippling red and orange ribbon flames. I can't see much of what she is from here, but she leans against the wall, arms crossed tightly over her chest, in a posture that says _I am waiting and I am worried._ No. Not my target--

\--but another figure in a near identical mask walks out of the door behind her, and puts a hand to her shoulder and I. Know. That gesture. I have seen it and felt it and I know who that is.

"Hey, John," I say, turning the key about between my fingers. "Let's go to the room."


	21. A Flashback, In Which I Do Not Appear, No Matter What Anyone Says

"Get up," Althea said, to the Lilim lying on the floor of her office. She rolled the burning coal between her fingertips, and watched as he dragged himself to his feet. "Sit down." She pointed, and he sat. He would, of course, do as she said. Having no choice in the matter.

She locked the restraints into place anyway, because he was weak, and would not hold still merely for a command. Not once she began again.

"I can't believe you thought you'd get away with this," she said conversationally. She put a hand to his cheek, and looked into his eyes, considering her options. How long she wanted to continue. How long she had to continue, until she had remade him into what he should have been all along. Other assistants she might have thrown away or sold away or destroyed herself, by now, but he had been so very expensive.

"You can't have it," Levon said.

She dug the hook at the end of her thumb into his cheek. "You would be surprised, sweetheart."

"No," he said. "You can't have that. You won't get it. You can try, and you can break me, but you will never have what you want." He smiled at her, nothing but bared teeth. "I swear by my nature that I will not let you."

The Geas wrapped around his wrist, thick and heavy amidst dozens of lighter bracelets that sat there. (Lighter ones, and one nearly as heavy, which she had caught him staring at between sessions. When she asked him what it was, he swore not to tell her.)

"You have to do what I tell you," Althea said.

"Yes. After a point, I'll be caught between Geases. Piling up dissonance until I'm covered in Discord. No way out." Levon watched her so calmly, and it made her angry, he made her so _very_ angry. "You can drive me mad and useless with it, I suppose. But you will never have what you want from me."

"I can still destroy you," she said. And oh, what a loss of _investment_ , when she had saved up for this. To have a Lilim of her very own, to play with and mold and use as she wanted. She had been so clever, and it wasn't working.

"I suppose," he said, as if he didn't care. "My own mother gave me that choice in the first minute after my creation, and while I didn't take it then, it's always an option. So if you destroy me, what of it? We both lose, and you still don't get what you want."

"No," Althea said. "You're wrong. I can still win. I can have you destroyed, and still get what I want out of you."

She was never sure afterward which one of them had been proven right.


	22. In Which I Learn The Rules

Our key opens to a hotel room that looks exactly like the one we had before leaving for this trip. Which is unnerving enough, but then I check the mini-fridge and it holds two bottles of that same beer Zhune brought me.

"This is no time for drinking," Zhune says, and eyes the room like it's a trap. Which it is. This whole auction is a trap, but I don't think it's for us. There would be easier ways to pull in a handful of demons and angels, if the god of whales only wanted revenge. This is pulling in payment for artifacts, and...maybe showing off. A demonstration of power. It's hard to read the motivations of ethereals, all the more when they're not coming from a human perspective.

"I know." I leave the beer where it is, and sit on the counter over the fridge. "It's time to come up with a clever plan, because that Habbie just walked in. Whatever we're doing, we get it set up before the auction starts. That's why they timed the entrances, I think. Letting us all come in more or less together, so that there's this big knot of scheming before the sales begin."

"So," Zhune says, folding his arms across his chest. "What's your clever plan?"

I lean back against the mirror, and think about this. "Immersion, and a layered con. We need to pull one on the Habbie, and this will work best if we're pulling another on the angels at the same time. Letting them in on half the con. They're going to expect something like that from us, because--we're the Wind, so far as they know. What does the Wind do?"

"Steal petty little things, and cause petty little mischief," Zhune says.

"Yeah, that's the party line, but I'm thinking about..." I wave a hand, and then snap my fingers. "Theme. We've gotta feel it if we're going to sell it. What does the Wind think it does?"

Zhune is silent for a moment. Remembering all those encounters with the Wind that I wasn't there for, maybe. Is there anyone in Heaven or Hell who he hasn't fought or robbed, at one time or another? Probably not. "They break the rules," he says at last.

"Which means that's our plan. Right there. And we need to know the rules in order to break them." I slide off the counter, and check out how I look in the mirror. Like my old vessel, but a little less worn at the edges. I am sharp and dangerous and adorable, and no wonder that Cherub gives me funny looks. When I smile at myself in the mirror, I could be almost like the Boss. Better keep that expression hidden from the angels from now on. "This has got to be one thorough swindle, Zhune. I don't know what the Geas will insist on to count as revenge. The more we can take from her, the better."

"Will we have anything to show our Prince, when we're done with this?"

"I don't know." I run a hand through my hair. It's not as messy as usual. I could dream it so, but. No matter. "Let's hope so. I'd like to have at least one present on hand when he asks for an explanation. Seeing how we didn't exactly clear this with him before running to another plane of existence. But it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?" And we all know how forgiving Demon Princes are.

Zhune snorts, and adjusts his mask. "Where in this place do we find the rules?"

"The obvious place." I toss him the key to the room, because he can follow or not as he likes, and walk out into the ballroom again.

The place is filling up. I wouldn't have thought so many people would come to this auction, but then, some of them are clearly entourages for other people. And some are here not for the auction itself, much less its biggest item, but to petition or rob or otherwise interact with the bidders. Much like us. There's a dizzying array of ethereals walking the balconies and dance floor, and the singer in the central bubble sways as her mouth emits a song I last heard at Layla's party.

I find a curtained doorway along the hall, and when I duck through it, Zhune's following right behind. This lobby looks exactly like the one we came through; either I picked the same as before, or they all look the same. I'd believe either. I walk up to the attendant at the desk, who waits as patiently as ever.

"I have questions," I say, "about the rules. Can you answer those for me?"

"Yes," she says, folding her hands before her.

"Are my questions confidential?"

She pauses for a moment, then says, "They are confidential from other bidders, but not from the sponsor of the auction."

Fair enough. "Can I ask what point totals other bidders currently hold?"

"No."

There goes one clever idea. "Can I ask how much something is worth if I don't currently hold it?"

There is a hesitation before she continues, as if she's consulting something else. "You may ask the point total of any item that has been assessed for the purpose of this auction."

I reach down and pull off one shoe, set it on the desk. "How much is this pair worth?"

She doesn't even have to consult the book. "Six points."

I shove the shoe back on, and lace it back up, wondering what a Trader might offer to the god of the whales, if this sponsorship includes getting the rewards. And why she might bring along an Orphan of Waters. "How much are lost Songs worth?"

"It would depend on the Song." Which means, if I'm following this right, that she's already been offered more than one.

Well, how should I know which ones? But I can make an educated guess. "The Song of Water."

"The corporeal, sixteen points. The ethereal, sixty-seven points. The celestial, sixty-seven points."

Let me go ahead and assume that Vaina, with no Marches experience and a rare connection to the auction at hand, was brought along for more reason than to watch a Mercurian who can take care of herself, and to verify the authenticity of the artifact on auction. (I no longer doubt it's authentic; a powerful Domain master might try to play everyone for a fool, but a god has better things to do with his time than cheat people.) One hundred and fifty points of bidding, and I think that's _quite_ a lot. Under the circumstances. Which means anyone bidding against them had better be carrying something worth just as much.

The attendant waits patiently for me to work through this. I smile at her, though I don't think she's sentient enough to care. "How much would a demon of Fire be worth? As a trade good." Zhune's shoes squeak on the floor behind me as he carefully does not say anything.

"It would depend," says the attendant, "on the demon."

Well, what do I remember of that Habbie's tastes and habits? A lot. More than I might like. "Impudite of Fire. Let's call our hypothetical one seven Forces strong, maybe eight on the outside, with a variety of useful skills related to paperwork, plus the natural resonance of her Band and the attunement that matches from her Prince. Available as a devoted Servant to be handed off as payment."

"Forty-six points."

"Huh. Not as much as I would've expected." I drum my fingers against my knife, and consider what I need to know. "When is payment due?"

"Immediately after the conclusion of the bidding for that item. The next item is not offered until payment has been cleared. There will be no form of change provided for payment worth more than the total bid." That sounds like a standard response.

"What happens if someone wins the bid, and then can't pay the price?"

"The item is offered to the next highest bidder, at the price they offered immediately before being outbid."

Oh. That is beautiful. That is exactly what I needed. "Can bidders pool their point totals for a joint bid?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. That's very helpful." I slip the knife out of my belt, and lay it on the table in front of the attendant. "Would you please add this to our total?"

She presents us with a card that says 49, and takes back the old card. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Not unless you can get me a better mask."

"Masks will be provided," she says, which I think is a no.

I lead Zhune back to the room, and, okay, let's admit it. I'm nearly bouncing on the way.

"Here's the plan," I tell him, once the door is closed. "We set the Habbie up to win. Go offer her our resources pool, and tell her, I don't know. Whatever sounds plausible. That all we care about is the angels not winning, maybe. And that we can help her win if she'll help us jump them on the way out. So she has an obvious route for betraying us and running off with everything after we've paid, she'll like that."

Zhune leans against a wall, looking down at me. "And?"

"And I go convince her assistant to run away. Which is going to be hard, because she'll be inside the kid's head through and through, but I think I can manage it. Or at worst, get the kid knocked out in ethereal combat at the last minute when the Habbie's not looking. That'll kick the kid back to her Heart, rendering her completely unavailable for payment when it comes due. Leaving the angels with the second highest bid."

"You think they'll have enough?"

"Of course. Because we're going to go offer them our point total, and tell them that we're running the con on the Habbie, who'll expect its use to win, and then find herself short. Leaving them as the second highest bidders, especially with our points to work with. We'll tell them..." I try to think of what the Wind would do here. What _would_ I do if I were some capricious asshole trying to prank a demon? "Fuck, we'll tell them I'm Geased into it, but trying to get something out of this anyway. If they get too dubious, make big eyes and tell them the Impudite looks like a total redemption option, if we can just separate her from the pack."

Zhune has this expression, even through the mask, like he's getting a headache. I know that body language, and he's not sure yet if he's angry at me or impressed. "Delightful. What's our story on how you were Geased?"

"Embarrassing. Neither of us wants to talk about it. If they really insist, it's something involving me trying to rescue my Cherub from a big bad demon of Gluttony, and being too dumb and new to this angel gig to realize I should've called in my Boss instead. Stay vague on the details, you weren't conscious for most of it."

Zhune tilts his mask back to eye me directly. "And what are we _actually_ doing, Leo?"

"Stealing that Habbie's assistant, if we possibly can. Making sure she doesn't walk away with what she wants from the auction, whether or not she wins it. And if we can sic a pair of angels on her when she walks out the door, all the better. I don't know what the Geas _wants_ , Zhune. If it wants us to destroy her entirely, I'm fucked, because I don't think we can do it. Even with angelic help. She's dangerous. But maybe we can get a few Forces pulled off."

"Fine," Zhune says. "But we'd better walk out of this with something to show the Boss, or she might not be the only one losing Forces." And he's not calling me on how fuzzy the plan gets around the end, which is good. I'm still figuring out the last third of this. Plenty of time to nail down the details.

"Do you think he wants an Impudite of Fire?"

"Probably already has one," Zhune says.

"Well, that's what re-gifting is for. Maybe we can offer him that artifact, but I'd rather let the angels get it than get into a brawl there. Just so long as the Habbalite _doesn't_ run off with it. She's willing to trade her assistant for it anyway, so she'd be winning. Annoyed, but winning. What matters in this plan isn't that we _win_ , it's that she _loses_."

"I would rather play to win." Zhune's gaze travels up and down my image in a way that suggests I'd better get this plan on the road before he comes up with other, inconvenient plans. "Get the angels' help against the Habbalite. Let them take the bruises. Then take the artifact and the Cherub. That's a better present."

"We can't give the Boss a Cherub. We already _did_ that. It'd be a repeat." It'd be horrifying. I am not doing that again, not ever. (Maybe for a Fire Cherub, but even then--no. Bad plan.)

"Not Waters," Zhune says. "He doesn't have _anything_ from Waters. That Archangel was dead and her Servitors reassigned before he became a Prince. If you want back in his good favor--"

"What I want," I say, before we can go further down this trail of thought, "is to get this Geas cleared, and have the Boss not actively annoyed at me. That's it. Whatever you have against Cherubim, we cannot afford to try to haul _two_ people to the Boss with us, and we need to get that assistant away."

"You don't get to set our goals," Zhune says quietly. In the same tone as before. _You don't get to make any promises for me._ I think I'm hitting a wall, here, and I'd better find a way around it.

"Why not? You've been setting all of them for years now. It's about time I got a shot. Hey, how about this. When we're on the corporeal, doing jobs for _your_ friends, you get to decide what we're after. When we're on the ethereal, doing jobs for my--for the people I owe, then _I_ get to decide. Fair, right?" He's not convinced, but I can work from this line of attack. "If I absolutely have to knock that assistant back to her Heart instead of stealing her or destroying her, _and_ we get the artifact, _and_ we've shredded a few Forces off the Habbalite, then we can talk about stealing the Cherub. Which I think someone would notice, but, hey, you're the one who wants to play risky games."

Zhune shrugs. "What can he do? He has no Archangel to come rescue him."

"Yeah, but I bet Marc would show up for a temp if the guy called for help, and do you know who I want to talk to over the next few days? People who are not hostile Superiors. That's who. That is, in fact, one of my life goals for who I want to meet and have conversations with. _Not them_."

"We can talk about it later," Zhune says. "That, and the way you've decided to play Ofanite."

"It's called acting. You do it. I do it. If it's making you nervous, I'm doing a good job." I'm not sure he's convinced, and that's...odd. I told him already, there's no part of my nature as a Calabite that I'm unclear on. "Besides, if I ever ran away, I wouldn't join up with the Wind. A bunch of hypocritical jokers like that? Boring. I'm just being Theft. Steal their ideas and use them myself, for exactly as long as they're useful, before I ditch them again."

"I'm not nervous," Zhune says, with a little weary sigh to punctuate his words. "However, I would rather you not get so excited by your wild schemes that we end up in--a worse position."

"Yeah, well, you can stop worrying about that, seeing as--" I cut off at a knock on the door. "Oh, I hope that's who I think it is."

Turns out I'm right. When I open the door, the angels are standing there, Catherine in front. Vaina watching her back, and that's a good sign, whether or not he realizes it. If he lets her take point on the door, it means he trusts _us_ not to hurt her.

"Come on in," I say, and let them walk through. "We need to talk."


	23. An Interlude, In Which I Sometimes Tell The Truth

The cognitive dissonance was wearing on him. There was the portion of his mind that reveled in the razor's edge of this game, the bait and the taunting and the potential for reversal. Joy in the moment of the reveal, or in the marks never, ever figuring out what had been done to them. Either way, he won. He was very good at winning this sort of game.

And there was the portion of his mind that said _Kill it now_ and _I thought they were all gone_ and _This place is wrong and I am weak and it is not my fault_ , and that portion of his mind was in constant disagreement with the other. This made focus difficult. This made thinking difficult, some sort of irony when traveling in the world of thought. This made him two steps behind his partner in these plans, when he ought to be only a half step behind, and coming up with his own plans to compensate for the inevitable gaping flaws. (At least the gaping flaws were less likely to involve buildings on fire, this time around.)

"Nicer place than ours," said the Mercurian, glancing around the room, and after a moment's hesitation she took a seat on the foot of the bed. "Is this modeled on a room you were in recently, in Heaven?"

"In the corporeal," Leo said. "So if yours is from a place in Heaven, that suggests it's drawing on our recent past. The last room the two of you spent any significant time together in, before coming to the Marches? At a guess." She sat down beside the Mercurian, drawing a knee up to her chest to rest her chin on. It was a pose that said _I am a little worried and defensive, I am not dangerous at all,_ and Zhune had seen more clever people than these two fall for it.

That. Thing. The Cherub of Waters. It drew up a chair from the desk, and sat there near the bed, Leo between two angels, and what could Zhune do but take up a parallel position? Two and two, as if they were some kind of matched set, and he did not want to match _that_. He wanted to deliver it to his Prince and see it broken.

"We'd like to know your plan," said the Mercurian, blunt but friendly against it. (Another day he might be amused at the slight lean between the two women on the bed, the implications, the _flirting_ his partner was doing. Angels were so easily tangled by affection. Today, it annoyed him. A distraction from finishing the job.) "As much as you're willing to tell us, because we do have a job to do, and if everything is going to explode halfway through this auction..."

Leo laughed, a wry little sound that Zhune suspected was a cover for a rather more telling noise. "No explosions planned, but you never know. It's just..." And she looked directly at him, that implied moment of asking permission to go on speaking, even though they both knew she would say whatever she damn well pleased. No keeping a leash on her once she started talking. "There, um. Okay. Let's just say that there might hypothetically be a Geas involved."

"Hell," said that thing, which was succinct and accurate and it had no right to take the same reading on this situation as Zhune did. Not that it had any way of knowing the depth of this problem. "What happened?"

Another of those exchanged looks, him and Leo, and he didn't even have to pretend to put the _Let's not go into details in front of strangers_ into his expression.

"It's complicated," Leo said breezily, the light weight of her words meaning _Of course you know I'm lying_ and _Well, but it is,_ to everyone in the room. "Never mind that. Here's what we need." He did not hear a capital letter in that last word, though he could almost wonder. He was not going to wonder about that. It was not a useful area of thought. "There's a Habbalite of Fire in there who's bidding for the same thing you are."

"And we aren't letting them have it," said that thing, leaning in. Towards the Mercurian, and towards his partner. If it touched her, he would take its fingers off.

"We're not," Leo said. "We're letting her win it." She smiled brightly, a few shades away from that Valefor grin that ought to make everyone _wonder_ , if they weren't fools.

"Um," said the Mercurian. "Care to explain?"

"It's perfectly simple," Leo said. "John and I approach her, claiming to be demons of Theft who already spotted _you_ as angels and told you we were Wind. We mean to jump you on the way out of here, and steal whatever you've won in the auction, because we're not sure yet what you're bidding for, but we want it. Theft, right? What you have, we want. But since it's two on two, we're not sure we can take you. We need her help. So we'll offer her our points pool, to bid against you."

The Mercurian blinked a few times. "I...almost follow. Except for the part where she wins the auction."

"She wins the auction," Leo said patiently, "with the expectation of our points added to hers. She'll be expecting us to pay up, because we still need her help on the way out. Of course, she intends to ditch us before then. There's no trust between demons, and she's a Habbie, so she'll think she can play us for fools. But when it comes time to pay, she won't have the points. If you can make it to second highest bid, you win the auction. You get what you want."

"And you get an angry Habbalite of Fire," said that thing. It looked at him, as if it expected him to object. Which a Cherub ought to. Yes.

"That," Zhune said dryly, "is a flaw in the plan."

"That's the part where we actually ask for help," Leo said, her expression all wryness and embarrassment. "We didn't reach this place in a way that's easy to get out, just by waking up back home. So we take the long way home, and she's...not going to be happy. At us. You really can have all the points we've got available to bid, to add to your total, if you'll help us with that."

This time it was the Mercurian who got to exchange a significant glance with her. Pet. Bodyguard. That thing. "What, exactly, is the Geas making you do?" asked the Mercurian. She laid her hand over Leo's, which was acceptable. Nothing dangerous in a Mercurian of Trade, not to them. "And how did you get it?"

"I was trying to save my partner," Leo said. "It worked, okay?" Her shoulders hunched in over the knee she'd drawn to her chest. Defensive. Weak. Uncertain. He knew better. "The Geas wants me to get revenge on this Habbalite for something she did to--Freedom, I guess. Or someone in it. A long time ago, I don't know the details. I wasn't really in a place for driving a hard bargain at the time, I was in a _hurry_."

"Some people," Zhune said, and he heard his own weariness as truth, "have not yet learned when it's appropriate to call in their Superior for assistance, instead of doing it all themselves."

"Yeah, well, it's never a good time to ask a Demon Prince for a favor," Leo said. "Old habits die hard." The Mercurian's fingers twined with his partner's, some sort of comfort or sympathy, whatever angels did when they didn't realize they were in danger.

"Mm. Well." That thing moved about in its chair, with a glance at the door. "Sympathetic though I am, I am loath to attack a demon in the Marches without excellent reason, when we have our own duties to see to."

"Oh, well," Leo said, her smile distinctly forced, "we can probably manage without. It was worth asking."

"Four against one doesn't make for bad odds," the Mercurian murmured, and Zhune did not know if he wanted her to succeed or not in convincing that thing to bend to her plan. "Is she alone?"

"Not quite," Leo said. "But I think I can convince the kid with her that there are better job opportunities elsewhere."

"Really," said that thing, and focused on his partner in a way that made Zhune's teeth ache. This shape had no teeth to tear at things, but in the land of dreams, he might as well dream them up. When he wanted them. The mask might as well be real, if he made it so. He could be as he liked and look as he liked, but he could not _do_ as he liked until his partner fulfilled that Geas and freed the both of them from the obligation. To pretend.

"Hey," Leo said, and shrugged, "that's how I read it. It's worth _trying_. Baby Impudite like that serving a Habbalite like that? I think she'd be willing to listen to a recruitment speech, if I can do it out of sight of the Punisher. Working for Habbalah is..." Her hand tightened on the Mercurian's. "No one. Enjoys that."

"We can help," the Mercurian said, and her creature only sighed, which was assent regardless of its wishes. "How many points can you offer?"

Trade would focus on the bottom line. (And what did his partner see in that snake, anyway? He could understand playing with it, he enjoyed that himself, but not the way Leo seemed so irate when the play developed a little bite.) Zhune offered the Mercurian the card he had been given.

"That," the Mercurian said, "might help. Thank you."

"Thank you," Leo said, and everyone detached, standing and moving as if they had places to go. "John and I need to work out the details, but...most of it should be obvious, I think. Just let us do our thing, and we can coordinate the rest on the way out."

"Be careful," said that thing, escorting its Mercurian to the door. "The demons aren't the only dangerous things out there."

Zhune nodded to it. "Oh, yes," he said. "I know."


	24. In Which My Partner Doesn't Play Fair

"That went well," I say, once the door is closed. Especially seeing how Zhune is staring at it still. He's playing his role perfectly in this con, but that's perfectly to outsiders, not so perfectly that I can't see he's upset about _something_. Maybe it's something about Djinn and Cherubim? He didn't seem nearly so clingy around that Judge Cherub, and she was actually _attuned_ to me. But we also sort of had backup right on hand.

Nowhere's quite so isolated from backup as the Marches, when you've taken a Tether up. (If there had been a place we could've actually trusted someone to leave our sleeping vessels undisturbed and safe for two weeks... Well. Ha. Wouldn't want to have to flee territorial Nightmares Servitors on the way over, anyway.) If he doesn't like being detached from his friends and relying on angels, tough. I learned how to work with that, and he can too.

Not that I ever had many friends to get detached from in the first place. There was Regan, and...well. Holly didn't count. So I guess there was just Regan, and then Nik and Ferro, and I'm going to get depressed again if I think about this too long. I hope Ferro is having a glorious time on an endless racetrack, somewhere out there.

"It's not a bad con," Zhune says, finally turning away from the door to look at me. Thoughtful again, which is good. He takes off his mask, the whole jaguar skin peeling off and hung over the back of a chair. "Risky, but all the good ones are. I don't like how vague it gets at the end."

"Overplanning means locking myself into a course too early." I flop down on the bed, and stare up at the ceiling. "I need to leave room to improvise. There's probably a Nightmares Servitor somewhere out there, and what if they have more points than the angels? Or more points than everyone?"

"Yes," Zhune says, "then what?" He sits down next to me on the bed, springs creaking in a perfectly realistic way. The accuracy is unnerving, because it's probably drawn from our minds. Picking out details we didn't even remember, or creating something that looks plausible and accurate to us, even if it's actually off. Just...off in ways we wouldn't notice, and which thus don't matter. The Marches can be a little creepy if you think about things too hard.

"Then we find a way to deal. Fire Habbie doesn't want Nightmares to win either, and you're on point for dealing with her. So maybe she knows what the point totals are, or already has plans in that direction that she'll want to recruit you into. Of course she'll have _plans_. She didn't come to this party because she was stupid." I wave a hand in his direction. "You're not stupid either. Come up with something to keep Nightmares out of the running, and let me know if you need help."

"And we end this with what?" Zhune asks. He leans on one elbow, watching me. Really, I should feel weird about this image of him, not the vessel I knew him in for so long, not even the vessel he just got, but it works fine. He moves like my partner and talks like my partner and has all the same expressions, so the exact appearance doesn't really matter. Details. "An Impudite the Boss might not even want, which we might or might not be able to hold onto. An artifact he probably _would_ want, but getting it from the angels is barely even in our plans. A few Forces ripped off this Habbalite, assuming she doesn't rip them off us first..."

"A Geas satisfied," I say. "Getting out of this alive. Those are the priorities. The rest is...details. We'll figure it out. Don't we always?"

"Except for the times when we end up running with empty hands. Or dead."

"Yeah, well, that's the nice thing about Theft." I tilt my sunglasses back onto my forehead. Makes no difference in how anything looks. Worst mask ever. I pull them back in place. Might as well keep them on, or I'll forget when walking out the door, and I don't know what happens then. "We don't need to come out clean on our plans. We don't even need to pull them off. We can get burned by our own stupid schemes and it's still okay, so long as we don't get _caught_."

"And yet," Zhune says, "it's still frowned on to spend two fucking weeks working on a project and have nothing to show for it."

"We did that week at the beaches--"

"And kept some minor stuff going along the way," Zhune says, more sharply than I'd expected. I do not know what's _up_ with him right now. "This is a great con, sure, but it's a con that has us walking away with empty hands. That's for the marks, not for us."

"So we hit something exciting when we get back home."

"Judgment Tether?"

"Exciting, not lethal."

"Game Tether."

I roll over on my side to stare at him. "What part of 'exciting' sounded like 'death wish' to you? The Game, _this_ month? If that was not the cleanest heist in the history of Theft, the Boss might well hand us over himself. Which is maybe what the Game had in mind when they did that round-up."

Zhune snorts. "Among other things."

"Like what?"

"A warning to other Princes. Cover for major activities that might draw attention otherwise. Retrieving a single demon of great importance to them who looks insignificant among the others. Punishment for Theft activities, recent or otherwise. A response to something the Boss did in one of the Council meetings. The Game never does something for a single reason, least of which an act as large as that. There are layers of intentions and goals and expected results."

I turn this over in my head for a while. "Efficient multi-taskers, those guys."

That gets a short laugh out of Zhune. Which means he's not thinking about whatever has him so grumpy, and that's an improvement right there. "That's one way of looking at it. With the Game, there are always complications and politics."

"And here I thought they were just pissed off that Inside Jobs kept robbing their casinos."

"Maybe that too," Zhune says. "Or maybe she was a double agent they were pulling back in. She took the Word from the previous holder, and he'd been with Theft much, much longer."

I'm not sure I even like that thought. Especially given how much time I spent with her. I'd like the Game to have as little information about what I get up to, _ever_ , as possible. But I didn't do anything very _incriminating_ around her. That I remember. "Do you think she really was?"

"Even odds," Zhune says, and shrugs. "If she wasn't, people will still be thinking it. With a Word like that..."

"That's the problem with all the internal, shifty Words," I say. "Of course Inside Jobs is going to stab you in the back. I wonder how demons of Sloth ever got any Word promotion done. If I ever, and let's hope it doesn't come to this, get stuck with some Word attached to me, I want one that's pointed outward. The Demon of Making Other People Explode."

"How very Fire," Zhune says dryly, and now we're back to _this_ again. Damn. "What were their politics like?"

"A lot simpler." I tuck my hands behind my head, trying not to feel nostalgic. This is not nostalgia, damn it all. Just memory. "Don't set these people on fire. Don't set these people on fire unless it's really important. Don't set these people on fire unless you can get away with it cleanly. Set these people on fire if you can do it without obvious proof you did. Set these people on fire every chance you get."

"That's not politics," Zhune says. "That's a to-do list."

"Close enough. What are Game politics like?"

"Complicated," Zhune says.

"I could've guessed that."

"Then you would have guessed right, but I doubt you can imagine the depth of the complications."

"No, probably not." I stare up at the ceiling, and wonder if there's another room above. What would fall down if I broke through the ceiling. (But the voice at the entrance did say, _The architecture and contents of the ballroom and private rooms are inviolate._. Best not to test it.) "If the Demon Princes of Hell were ever able to fully cooperate, point us all in the same direction, and work coherently towards one single goal, we'd have won this war by now."

"Probably," Zhune says, "but where's the fun in that?"

I sit up, and grin at him. The smile I shouldn't show the angels. "In which case, as long as we're here, let's have _fun_. We need to do at least two hits on the marks before the final auction gets called. Coordinate the first, since I can't get anything out of that Impudite if the Habbie's watching, then reconvene and work out if we need to adjust for the second. By the third and final, we should know what's really going on. I'd better check with the staff about where our exits are, so that we can work that out with the angels in turn. Even if we decide to ditch them on the way outside, instead of tackling the Habbie four to one, they'll be expecting a rendezvous arrangement."

"Plenty of time to get started," Zhune says. "We have, what, a day and a half left?"

"More like a day and a quarter, but it should be enough. We could pull this off in four hours if we had to, though I wouldn't like to cut it that close."

"Good," Zhune says, and pounces on me.

This is so damn familiar I almost let it happen. It's part of the process. But we aren't on the corporeal, we're _here_ , where I'm faster and stronger and can look like anything I damn well want, so I roll out from under him and get my feet on the floor, myself off the bed, while he's still reacting to the fact that I will not _let_ him. "Not today."

"There's time," Zhune says, and he stands up to follow me, pacing off the bed and onto the floor and towards me until I find myself in a corner of the room again, backing up out of sheer _habit_. He's installed all sorts of habits in me, checking the exits and watching for watchers and spotting the marks and letting him have his way, and he's better at that than Regan ever was. He's had more time to get in my head. "If you didn't want this, why do you look like that?"

"Because it's easy to pull on the image of a vessel I've had, and this one's a lot less likely to be recognized by anyone in the Marches than my last two, and unlike the current one, doesn't mean anyone can track me down afterward by the look." My head rests against the wall, and his hands just to either side of me. Like a trap I could just duck out of, if I wanted to, but I'm too annoyed to work with that yet. "Not everything's about you, Zhune."

He ruffles my hair. The way Valefor does. Or maybe it's the other way around, I'm never sure, and I don't like being reminded of it either way. "Lost the vessel, picked it up again here, what did you expect me to think?"

"I don't care what you think. Nor do I particularly care about your stupid preferences in what I look like. If you're that damn interested in getting it on with me back on the corporeal, learn how to work with other vessel types. I can _explain_ that if you need the help, because it's not like I haven't been there before."

"With your first little snake," Zhune says, and I do not like his expression. Because down on the corporeal that would mean this was about to get...messy. And uncomfortable. Which it can't here, because I'm still stronger than him, and besides, he can't hurt me. Much. Physically. It's not how Djinn work. They just _find_ you and keep you and talk you into things. "Like you don't have your own tastes."

"I have reasonable preferences, and you have idiotic human-style hangups."

"Really," Zhune says.

I fold my arms across my chest. Could shift my image, look like any other version of myself, look like someone else entirely or no one at all, but at this point it feels like I've got something to prove. Specifically, that what I look like doesn't give him any more damn privileges than he'd have otherwise. "Really."

"As you like." Zhune does not back off. He looks thoughtful.

The first time I saw him look quite like that was just before Katherine started not talking about anything, curled up in the back seat of the car, and I knew something had happened and I didn't know what, except that something _had_ happened when I wasn't looking, and I got her out of there before there was worse. Before I had to find out, because if I found out I would've had to do something about it, and I knew I could not take him.

Zhune shrugs, and his image shifts. Taller and thinner and paler, longer fingers, higher cheekbones, a different cut of clothing (just as finely tailored) and an expensive watch, and that is _wrong_ , because he looks exactly like Penny did when Zhune first saw him. Waiting for me to come say hello.

"Do you like this better?" Zhune asks, his words and Penny's face and Penny's voice, and he smiles, just the slight curve at the corner of his lips and it's exactly like the Seraph does. When I can convince him to, which is not often. "What did you get up to with that snake while I was in Trauma, Leo?"

"Nothing. I didn't do anything." Saved the world. Got drunk. Talked about the wrong sorts of things. Put together a puzzlebox. Oh, Zhune doesn't care about any of that, does it, and this is the problem with Djinn, they do care, and they care about the most inconvenient things.

"Liar," Zhune says. "Come on. It's in the Marches. You can be whoever you want, and maybe you can have whoever you want. Did you ever get to try this? Or did you only want to?"

"Stop it."

"You don't even mean that," he says, and leans in, taller than before and his head tilting down towards my face, memory trying to eat its way through my skull (this is all metaphor, we are only in the world of the mind) about how this is wrong, there should be a different room and a couch and his coat off and sleeves rolled up while he listens to me explain what my partner will do him if Zhune ever. Catches him.

"Stop it. This is stupid, and it's getting in the way of work."

"No," Penny says--Zhune says, it's only him, whatever he looks like, and he catches my wrists, pins them against the wall behind me. I could push away. I am stronger than him here. I could just leave. "What gets in the way of work is your wild dreams that this could work out. It couldn't, Leo. Want me to explain why?"

"Shut up and--"

He kisses me, and murmurs against my cheek, "Don't worry. I'm going to tell you the truth. That's what you want when someone looks like this, isn't it? The truth, or at least something you can believe for a while. No wonder you like Balseraphs. Sit down. I'll explain this to you."

I slide down to the ground, knees to my chest, wrists in his hands, and he sits there, smiling at me. Just a little. Seraphic. Where he learned this I don't know, but it's letter perfect, every detail down to the well-scrubbed pale yellow spot on one shirt cuff where coffee splashed, was washed out, was deemed acceptably invisible but not entirely vanished. "You don't even know--"

"I know plenty," he says. "Hush. Listen. You're very young, and you don't understand how these things work. So I'll tell you. Did you know how old Trade is? As old as Judgment. Older than Hell. They have always believed in turning a profit, and oh, they are so very _good_ at it."

"This doesn't even matter," I say. I do not believe it but I say it because I want him to stop and I want him to not look like this.

"Be quiet and listen," Zhune says. "The Seraph is talking. Trade turns a profit. So a clever little Seraph finds a demon who will listen to him, who will trust him and believe what he says, and he offers these tiny crumbs of what the demon cannot find elsewhere. Affection and sympathy and that _lovely_ certainty that this one will never lie to you. And what if the demon believes him, and follows him home?"

"I'm not going to--"

"They will pull you out of your vessel," Zhune says, steady and certain as Penny has ever been, "and drag you into the light of Heaven, and you will burn. You will die screaming and that, Leo, will be turning a profit, because they match the sum of Heaven's investments against the sum of Hell's, and one less demon means that Heaven is just a little bit stronger. By comparison."

I don't even know what my argument is. That he wouldn't make me. He _wouldn't_. He promised. A Seraph and a Trader means you can believe that promise, the way you can a Lilim when the Geas appears. Except I don't even know how much one note of dissonance counts against. That.

"Or maybe," he says gently, like he doesn't want to upset me with the truth, "they would pull you to Heaven. It works occasionally. They could take away every defense you have, and make you something you aren't, but you might live through that. They do like that. More profit for them, even if you're not worth as much on the other side. And what do you think would happen then? Do you think the Seraph would be yours, or that you could be his? Do you think a little snake like that, older than you and more experienced and maybe even a little bit smarter, doesn't already have friends? Friends and lovers and coworkers, people he's known for hundreds of years. Maybe you could be his driver. His dog. Waiting for him to snap his fingers and tell you what to do, since you'd have no one else to rely on, and he has _so many_ people already who will lend him aid."

I know that Penny has friends. But that's beside the point. It's not even as if I was ever going to try that. I wouldn't. I know better. I don't even _want_ that, and I just want him to stop saying these things.

"But what I think," he says, his voice low and confidential, like Regan's when she would tell me what she wanted me to believe more than anything else, what she believed (because she was a Balseraph and they always believe what they say, and I think Zhune believes this too, because if he lies I will _find out_ ), "what I think, Leo, is that he's happy to have you where you are. You're a traitor. You've betrayed your partner and your Prince, to send that snake presents. Look at how the numbers are stacking up. You give him what he wants, and you don't even ask for payment in return. Why would he _want_ you to come be his dog, when you're doing so much for him right where you are?"

"I am not--"

"But you are," he says. He lets go of my wrists to cup my face in his hands. "You stole from Hell. You lied to me. You used our Prince's own resources to do it. And what did you receive? What did he have to spend? You're the best sort of investment a Trader could ask for, Leo. No work on his end, and you keep on turning on a profit."

"Zhune, you bastard," I say, and I am not even sure how well I can talk anymore. "They took you away and you've made sure I don't know _anyone_ in Theft, they won't even help me out except for you, that wouldn't last long, you made sure I can't do anything or go anywhere without you, and they took you away and what did you expect me to do? I could get you back, or I could go begging to Penny, and I. Chose. You."

He's quiet. Good. Quiet. I can deal with that.

"So. Stop it. Stop talking about this. You want me to pick? You want me to decide which way I'm going to die? It's with you and for you, you selfish bastard, and I already picked, because I am so tired of leaving people. You're going to abandon me eventually, because you always leave your partners, but it won't be my doing."

He brushes the hair back from my forehead, and kisses me there. I wish he didn't look like Penny.

"Don't be stupid," he says. "I won't leave you. I won't let anyone steal you, either. Not in Heaven or Hell. Finding you is my job, and when we get separated, your job is to stay safe until I come get you."

"You weren't going to--"

"Hush," he says. "I'm explaining how the world works. If you hadn't come after me, you wouldn't be in such a mess right now. So you need to understand why not to do it again."

"I'm not a mess." I'm not. I'm fine. Everything is going perfectly except for my partner looking like that and talking about these things and I don't even know anymore if he's telling the truth, except if there's anyone who'd know how Heaven works, it's probably him. Better than I would. And it doesn't _matter_ because I've never once seriously considered running that direction. If it was ever going to happen, it would have when I was working for Sean.

"You're such a mess, kid," he says. "Want me to prove it?"

Anywhere this is going is bad. "No?"

Unathi's hands cupping my face and it says, "Are you sure?"

So here is the thing, there is a wall behind me and it is in front of me and even though I _know_ because I know where I am and what's going on, I know that it's not that Habbalite and it's only my partner fucking with my head, I know this but there's this whole section of my mind that I use for storing the things I don't want to think about, and right now there's a crack in it where some screaming is happening, which will not be mind because I do not have any reason for that yet, there is nothing to be upset about, she used to put me through worse than that every single day over and over again until I learned to mind my manners, so there's no reason for me to even be upset about any of what happened in Shal-Mari when it was one incident and maybe I was just a little out of practice with dealing with that sort of thing, but it's in front of me and there is a wall behind me, and I want that wall to go away so that I can LEAVE

And the voice says, _The architecture and contents of the ballroom and private rooms are inviolate._

and my resonance slides right off the wall and will not settle on anything around me, not the floor or ceiling or anything belonging to this place, to this god, who says Thou Shalt Not and that leaves two places for this resonance to go, to the person in front of me or into myself, and I _know_ that is my partner and

that hurts even worse than when Captain Savas used to do that. Blood in my mouth, and I'm curled up on the floor, and Zhune says, "Bless it, why did you do _that_?" but I'm kinda okay with how exasperated he sounds because at least. He looks like himself. Now.

I say something through the blood in my mouth, not sure what, and try to figure out how that even works. It's all image, here. It's not real blood. It's not real body. None of this is real, and I have finally gone ahead and punched myself in the mind. Nice trick, Leo. Good thing you're not working for Fire anymore, or you'd be eating dissonance too on top of that. Could've just. Let the whole mess of entropy go, let it dissipate entirely, and taken the dissonance instead, but I didn't want to try to explain _this_ to the Boss.

Zhune sighs, and pulls me to my feet, and peers into each eye. "I'm not even sure if it counts as brain damage when it happens here," he says, "but that can't be good."

"Nn."

"Yes, well, now we know that you hit _hard_ in the Marches, which we already knew, and you can't even walk straight. Can you?"

"Can too," I say, and fall over when he lets go of me. But I think I can walk straight. I just need to concentrate harder. And wait for this to stop hurting so much.

"You have to stop hurting yourself," Zhune says wearily, and picks me up, lays me down on the bed. "It's a bad habit. I could start smacking you with a rolled-up newspaper every time you did it, but I don't think that would work. How about you just get back to acting like a sensible little Calabite, and _stop_?"

"I am sensible." I stare up at the ceiling, and turn my tongue about inside my mouth. Blood and salt. Doesn't taste quite like usual. More like salt water. Thank you, god of the whales, that's a lovely touch in this place you're sponsoring. And what does a god want with all these things we're bidding, anyway? I guess porpoises want talismans as much as anyone else, but still. You'd think gods would be above this. But only a god would have the power to pull this off. "And I'm not little."

"Smaller than me," Zhune says, as he pulls down my jeans. "We'll have to come up with an excuse for this, and send you over to the angels. One of them's bound to know how to heal your mind, they wouldn't have come here without someone being able. And we want you fixed that way before you go try to match wits with that Impudite."

"Yeah," I say, and stare at the ceiling. "I'll come up with an excuse. You know, I'm stronger than you, in the Marches."

"I know," Zhune says.

But I let him do what he wants anyway, because my mind hurts and my mouth tastes like saltwater and he was probably telling the truth, anyway. He usually tells me the truth. And he's right, I've been something of a mess, and he deserves some sort of concession.


	25. An Interlude, In Which Promises Are Made

Vaina heard the knock on the door from down at the bottom of his office. In Heaven a light would have appeared by his desk, signaling that someone at the top entrance--and quite possibly someone leery of descending into the water--had come visiting, but either the simulation of the room was imperfect, or the nature of the standard doors outside along the balconies meant it could not simulate a sensor built outside the office proper.

He sent the currents about him to tidy away what he had been working on. A half-finished wood carving, and it had been a little strange to run human-shaped fingers over the wood grain, pick up the tools with hands of the wrong size, and contemplate how to proceed. What the wood wanted to be. When he returned to Heaven, the actual carving would be waiting for him just as he left it, and he had thought that working on its imitation here might offer a few ideas.

Besides, working with his hands was a way to calm down. The place unsettled him.

Catherine's voice drifted through the water, a murmur of inquiry against another voice too low for him to make out the details. He checked the line of his attunement to her reflexively, because even if there was no sudden warning of danger... Well. One could learn quite a lot by what sorts of interactions increased the overall threat level.

Which remained steady, if unsettlingly high. It had felt so ever since they left Blandine's side of the Vale, and walked out into the Far Marches. The land of dreams was a dangerous place, had always been so, and any ounce of benefit gained by that mad Archangel's Purity Crusade--which, let a man be fair even to those he hates, had removed many terrors and parasites and monsters--was outbalanced by the increased hostility to all the forces of Heaven.

When Vaina had finished tidying his area of work, he let the currents carry him up through the water, and stepped out into the dry area of his office. (Though it was not truly his office, and it was good to remember this. The land of dreams was not unreal, not precisely, but it delighted in pretending to realities other than its own, or stealing them outright.) Catherine stood near the doorway, speaking with the Ofanite, who was...leaning against the wall in a corner of the room, arms wrapped loosely about herself, and Vaina wondered immediately who had hurt her. And where her Cherub was.

He saw no signs of injury, but in dreams, such things often weren't visible.

"But he should--" Catherine broke off, and gave him a tight smile that conveyed she was sharing some of his own thoughts. "Leah seems to have run into an...accident? And was asking if you would be willing to sing her some healing."

"Certainly," Vaina said. He almost regretted leaving the water so soon, because one usually let the Intercessionist conduct any gentle interrogations as seemed to be necessary here, an Elohite not being available. 

But Catherine dipped her head to him, and said lightly, "I'm going to go speak to that jackal-headed woman again, she's been making noises like we might be able to work something out if we can help her with the auction she wants." She patted the Ofanite lightly on the shoulder, nothing but a farewell gesture, and left the room.

So that was what the Mercurian thought would be more useful. And perhaps a very new Ofanite with a Cherub who clung so tightly to her (and where _was_ he? dealing with what had caused the accident?) would find another Cherub easiest to speak with. Vaina found one of the two chairs he kept in the dry area, and pulled it over to the other, by the curtained window. "Come sit down," he said, and tried to make it an offer, not a command. "Will you tell me what happened?"

"I got into an argument with a wall," Leah said, and took the chair across from him. She curled a knee up to her chest, arms around that.

Vaina held out a hand, and waited for her to give him one to hold. "A wall."

"Yes, well. I was testing out some boundaries, for the sake of better planning and escape routes, and it turns out that when the authoritative voice overhead says 'Don't fuck with the architecture,' she really _means_ it. So now we know." Her smile for him was perfectly steady, and he didn't believe it for an instant.

He turned her hand palm up, and placed his other hand atop. "And your Cherub didn't stop you?"

"I didn't exactly tell him what I was going to try," she said, and he began the singing. Letting her explanation, or whatever she wanted to pretend was the truth, roll over the Song while it swept past underneath. Clouds over the surface of the ocean. "He gets so damn clingy sometimes. Don't do that, Leah. That's dangerous, Leah. Stop running off and changing the plan on me, Leah. Let me explain how the world works, Leah. How am I supposed to learn anything if I don't take a few risks?"

Vaina sang on, and watched her face. The sunglasses made her expression harder to read. (He wondered who had invented such a thing, and if Lilim held it against that person.) It had seemed a peculiar mask when the attendant offered it, and yet the tinted lenses hid more of what she meant than the mask he wore. Though, in all honesty, he had never tried very hard to hide his own expressions, except when a sign of his immediate feelings might hurt one he wished to keep unhurt.

"Besides," she said, "it's going to work out fine. I have a plan, you have a plan, and between the four of us we can get this done. I'm sure there's someone out there from Nightmares, but John knows how to deal with that. He knows how to deal with pretty much fucking everyone, or so he would tell me. Like I don't know how to take care of a few enemies too. I wouldn't have lived this long if I couldn't take care of myself."

Vaina finished the Song, and let the Essence flow out into the Symphony. (This was how anyone could see the ethereal was as real as Heaven or Earth: the Symphony was listening here, and its music played just as loudly.) "He's trying to help," he said. "I am afraid that clinginess is a common failing in Cherubim. We hover and scold and make pests of ourselves because we care."

"Yeah," she said. "I know." She pulled her hand away, and he would not have tried to hold onto anyone who did that, much less an Ofanite. So he let that go. "Thanks. Want the Essence back?"

"No need," he said. "I have plenty, and if you intend to go about attacking the architecture, you may want to keep some emergency reserves on hand." Which got a lopsided smile out of her. "Feeling better?"

"A little," she said. "No point in wasting more Essence on this. If anything out there jumps me, either John and I can take it, or it's a god and no one can."

"Let us all avoid provoking the god," Vaina said.

"Good advice." She stood up, and stalked abruptly to the other side of the room. There was another window there, curtains drawn. He had found the repeating image of Heaven outside, nothing but a looped video drawn from his memory, unsettling when it played out that way in this place. "That's the part I still can't figure out."

"That the whales have a god?"

"No," she said, flicking a hand in brisk dismissal, "that part is obvious. If there are ethereals born from the dreams of computers, why not gods for whales? I expect they'd have a few, or maybe they did before the Purity Crusade. I can't figure out what the god gets out of this, though. Most of the people here came with talismans, a rare few with artifacts. A few Servants, a few bits of knowledge... But most of this junk is aimed at humans, and ethereals that imitate them. What does the god of whales get out of this whole production that it actually _wants_?"

"Trade goods," Vaina said. He wondered if he ought to follow her, or ought to give her space. When she pulled back the curtain and looked out into the view of what was not Heaven, he decided on the former. "The whales have shrinking numbers and a threatened habitat, so a god that means to keep its worshippers can't simply ignore humanity. The auction gives it items to bargain with, an excuse to size up potential allies and make bargains with them on the side."

"Maybe that's it," she said, staring out the window. "Is this what the view looks like, from--this must be your place in Heaven, right? Not Catherine's, unless she's big into swimming."

"It's mine," he said. "Trade built it for me, in a place where the Bazaar and the Savannah draw close. The view is...approximate. A generalized sense of what it usually looks like, I believe, and not any specific memory."

"Just look at that sky," Leah said softly. "Goes all the way up." She closed the curtain, and turned around with that sideways smile on. "You know, I expected that Catherine would have that Song, not you. Since she's the one with Marches experience and all. Didn't you say it was your first time here?"

"Aside from a brief excursion for training before this trip, yes," Vaina said. "But I'm a Cherub. Of course I would have the Song of Healing."

"Well, the corporeal version."

He shook his head, and strode across the room to stand beside her. Not so near as to make her feel crowded, another Cherub trying to cling. "Waters," he said. He raised two fingers just above his head. "The snow at the peaks of the mountains." He drew the two fingers down to his side. "The currents at the bottom of the oceans." Two fingers before his mouth, and oh, it hurt deep and sharp and almost sweet, to explain what he had not in years. Most angels knew better than to ask, and she had not asked, but the old, old phrases were still so fresh in his mind. "The vapor in our breath." He let his hand fall away again. "Water exists in three states, inhabits many places and many forms, and it is _error_ to forget either the differences or the unity between the three. In Waters, we never learn a single version of a Song. All three, or none at all."

"Oh, well," she said, "Thunder aside, I suppose."

"That is all three. It's just very efficient about it."

And she laughed, which made him feel better. That she was not retreating to the awkward pity that so often came if he spoke of this at all, or the sincere chivvying encouragement of _You're doing so well_ and _Oh, tell me more,_ but taking it as if he had spoken of anything at all which he happened to find of interest. "Convenient for me," she said. "Is that why--" She stopped short, and rocked on her heels. Thinking about something. "You're trading them the Song of Water, aren't you. One of the lost Songs, except _you_ remember it."

"You're rather clever, Leah."

"I am," she said, and walked right past him to fling herself back down in that chair. "Not very well informed in certain areas, but I am so damn _sharp_ I could cut myself. I'm surprised, though, that a Song could be so precious and rare that it became lost in the first place, and you're still willing to deal it out to ethereals. I don't even know what it does. Controls water? Is that how you did that trick, stepping out of the water and all of it rolling right off you?"

"No," he said, and took the chair near her again. "That's my Choir attunement." He'd forgotten that he'd even done that, the habit so strong it required no conscious thought. Many people became uncomfortable when dripped at during conversation. "Minor control of water. No one sinks a ship, with that one, but it can be useful in subtle ways."

"I can imagine," she said. And she...did not ask, what he suspected she wanted to know.

And she was so very young, and knew so little, and he could read the _wanting_ to know across her face. As if she had learned early on not to ask for what she wanted.

"The Song of Water," he said, the decision made that easily, and no one was left who could gainsay him on this choice, "exists in three forms, as with most Songs. The corporeal strain is simplest, most obviously dangerous, most literal. Create or destroy water. Yes, even in another being."

"And someone can drown on dry land," she said. Thoughtful, and rather as if she was imagining being done to, and not the doing. "Have you used it that way?"

"Yes." But that created no nervousness, the admission, which was good. He did not wish to frighten her. "The ethereal strain is in some ways the most powerful. Slow, steady damage to an area, over the course of days. The erosion borne by immense weight of water. Sing that in the center of a house, and the house will fall, with all within in it reduced to ruins. And yet anyone might walk out the door and escape its power."

"That," she said, and even through the gray glass he could see the brightness of her eyes, "would be glorious. Have you used that one?"

"Outside of learning it? Once. I was clearing a rocky field for use in planting."

"And no one _noticed_?"

Vaina shrugged, and was distantly pleased at the moment of embarrassment. It was so...normal. "A man leaves for two weeks of hunting, ritual sacrifice, and work in a distant field. When he returns, the field is ready for planting. Who asks too closely what he was actually up to during that month?"

She laughed, and he loved the sound of it. All the delight that he had seen in her, right there. She seemed more the Ofanite she was at the very idea of it. "Clever. Unless someone goes to check on you."

"I had someone keeping an eye on that. A reliever doing Role work, who carried bread to her father every day." And he stopped and he could not continue because he did not _know_ what had happened to that child, not a child of his Forces but a child of his rearing, and he did not dare to look for her among the lists of the destroyed, departed, the _damned_. She could be any of those. She could not be Waters, no matter what she had been once.

"It hurts," Leah said. So conversationally that he was not sure, for a moment, how to respond. But she continued, "The leaving. Losing it all. You wake up and everything _changed_ , the world around you changed and you've lost that connection to what you served." She drew both knees up to her chest, and rested her chin on them, staring at him through dark lenses. "Oh. I'm sorry. That's just...me. It's not the same, I don't think."

"What happened?" Because he did not want to speak about what happened to him.

"I woke up from Trauma," she said, "and they had transferred me. Did it while I was sleeping. Passed me between two Princes like a _tool_ , and I woke up to new dissonance condition, new goals, new part of Hell..." Her fingers dug into the shredded knees of her jeans, picked at the threads there. "Never mind. Old history. Not so old as yours, I suppose, or maybe a little older, depending on whether we're taking about falling into Trauma or waking up from it. And it's not the same at all."

"What did you do?"

"I ran away," she said, "and kept on running until someone caught up with me and told me that I ought to be working for _him_. If he hadn't caught up, I'd be... I don't know. Probably dead. And that change hurt too, but it _works_. I can be someone different than I used to be. People change all the time. It just takes a while to get used to the details." Her voice was light and her expression was wry and he knew how the Wind could lie. "I'm sorry. I interrupted. What's the third version of the Song?"

"The third strain, the celestial," Vaina said, because he did not think she wanted or would accept any gesture of sympathy, "is why so few people learned the Song." And perhaps he ought not say, but his Archangel was _gone_ and if Trade could listen to his explanation and say, yes, this is valuable and we will spend this coin, then he could spend it himself. "Look into a bowl of water. See and hear through it to another place."

"Fucking hell," she said. Which sounded more like awe than anything else.

"Not the description I would have chosen, but, yes. It can be powerful. There are restrictions, as you must have water in the other place, and know exactly where that is, but..." He shrugged. "You can see why the Song was lost."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I certainly can. And Heaven will really let you give this away?"

"For what they offer here? Yes. And Hell might have the Song as well, whether or not we know. The Demon Prince of Secrets carries exactly what that title implies, and there may be ancient Servitors of Vephar still hidden away."

"Probably not in Trauma," she said wryly. "Unless someone stashed a few in a closet for a few millennia just in case. But... I can just imagine what the god of whales could do with that. See anywhere in the oceans that it knows of, and know exactly what happens there? I'm surprised it wasn't assigned more points."

"I beg your pardon?"

"If you go to the attendants, and ask about a specific anything that's been offered up for a point total already, they'll tell you how much it's worth." She slid her knees down, sprang to her feet. "They should be offering you more. I wonder--" She rocked on her heels, arms folded. "I _wonder_ and I don't know how to find out, so that'll be an exciting complication if it comes up, won't it? Hell, I'd better start working the room now, if I need to plan for that many variations. And ask about the exits."

"What, exactly, are you thinking about, Leah?"

She turned a brilliant smile on him. "Nothing solid enough to worry about yet. Besides, if things get dangerous, you'll know. But I'd keep an eye on the exits. Just in case. Sure you don't want any Essence back, for the healing?"

"Quite. It was my pleasure." He stood up, and wished he had something to offer her. Some token of the connection, so much less than attunement and so much more than mere conversation. "Would you like to learn the Song of Water?"

She went very still. Then said, "There's not enough time. I'm sure of it."

"No. There's not. However, when all of this is dealt with, the next time you're in Heaven, stop by my office. I'll teach you the Song, if you want to learn."

"Which version?"

"All three strains, Leah. Or none. That's the rule."

Her smile went crooked again. "I don't get back home very often. Places to go, things to steal." And Judgment to watch out for, perhaps. He wondered what, exactly, Judgment would think of a newly redeemed Ofanite of the Wind running through the Marches, a Geas pressing her on and her Cherub trying desperately to keep up. Nothing very approving.

"Nevertheless," he said. "The offer stands. I promise."

"Well," she said. "If I ever make it to see you there, I'll take you up on that. Promise. But don't go holding your breath, okay?" She turned for the door, face away from him so that all he had to understand her meaning was her voice, the way she walked. "But I do appreciate the offer. I'd better get moving. There's too much to figure out, and I need to build up momentum for when something unexpected _inevitably_ gets in my way. Good luck with your side of things."

"Godspeed," he said, and let her go. It was never wise to try to pin her Choir down in one place for longer than they wished to remain.


	26. In Which I Am Charming And Clever

The attendant at the central sphere plays music the way a radio might. She opens her mouth, and out comes a song, vocal parts and backing instruments all at once. It'd be less creepy if she stood still, like an appliance, but she sways to the music as it plays out her mouth.

There are at least three hundred people in this ballroom, and I don't know how many of them are real. None of the attendants, I'm sure, but the guests could be twenty real bidders, twenty people in entourage, and then two hundred and sixty figments dreamed up to fill out the place. Most of them look like they're having fun, which suggests to me that they can't all be real bidders, or even the people who followed bidders in. (Or were dragged in by bidders to fill out the required set of four. That's what I would've done, if we hadn't run into the angels.) This is not a place for fun, whatever it wants to pretend. There is serious business going on here.

And I'm halfway sure it's a trap, but I'm still not sure how, or why. There are easier ways to call in enemies and destroy them, especially for a god. This is far too much of a production for...what, two angels and five to six demons? (I wonder if the Wind really _did_ send anyone. Hilarious, but unlikely. They don't have the imagination to do any work in the Marches.)

So all I can do for now is keep my eyes open and walk through the loose crowds like I am one confident bidder with a point stash and a plan.

Catherine shoots me a quick smile as I pass; she's in conversation with a jackal-headed woman who could have stepped right out of Heliopolis, at least as far as clothing and visual theme go. That woman also has a folded-up telescope slung across her back, and presumably that's her bid. Doesn't fit her background otherwise, the astronomical obsession of that city aside.

I wind between ethereals of all kinds of strands. Plenty of human-shaped types and a few pop culture references, a couple with fan and waistcoat who might've stepped out of a Jane Austen novel, and stranger things: a shade of purple that is somehow distinctly _itself_ and not merely a haze in the air, a praying mantis taller than Zhune, a tree ribboned in snakes that bends a snake's mouth down to take a glass from a tray. Because the attendants are here in the crowd, moving through with glasses of what looks like water and probably is not.

One offers me her tray, with a smile. I smile back, and move on. That's not the trap, but I don't want to find out what it is, either.

And caught by that idea, I turn back and tap her on the shoulder. "Sir?" she says, which is...an interesting choice, given my current image.

"Where are the exits located?"

"Exits are located through any lobby."

How logical. Which is almost unusual for a Domain. "Where do they lead?"

"All exits lead to neutral territory."

Fair enough. I think. Assuming that the attendants aren't lying about the rules--and I suspect they're being very precise about them, and only stating what's true, because a statement of intent matters in the Marches--that means they're likely to dump us out on the sands, or at worst a dangerous but unmastered Domain. And I don't think that's the kind of trap this god has in mind.

"Please remember," says the attendant, "that no re-admittance is offered after this point." She walks away to offer drinks to the Regency couple, who accept gracefully, then return to their flirting with each other.

The song from the central sphere ends, and that attendant speaks in a voice that carries throughout the room. "Ladies and gentlemen, neither and other and both. Ethereals, angels, demons, and oh, little dreamshade, don't think we didn't notice _you_ over there. The auction will begin in twenty-four hours absolute time, somewhat sooner relative time. All winning bids are due before items will be handed over. All beverages are complimentary. Do not feel obliged to tip the staff; they are quite happy as they are."

I swear that attendant in the center smiles at me, and breaks into another song. Something from an album Regan owned in college, it wasn't _my_ kind of music, and I barely had any taste in music anyway so of course we always listened to what she liked. I'm almost there: the bedspread under my bare wingless human-vessel shoulders, her hands on my chest and my throat, and Regan saying, _You'll never do better than me, you're lucky I find you useful,_ and I couldn't even tell if she was using her resonance or not because that truth made so much sense.

Oh. The moment's gone. 

The song's still playing.

How much do we want to bet the auction doesn't start until every bidder here gets hit with a song like that? And every single instance a little bit painful. Zhune's got old history I'm sure he doesn't like to think about, and he's going to get hit at least once. Vaina, well, an angel that old doesn't even need to be an Orphan to have some bittersweet memories ready to pull up with a song. I suppose Catherine must too. No one here who's real is so young they haven't acquired one traumatic memory accessible through music. Because that wasn't just _memory_ , that was a _push_ , as much of one as any Habbalite's wave of emotion through the brain, if rather less cruel.

Someone's playing with us.

And. Wait. I think there's someone here who might not have that music memory at all, and not the dreamshade (who would have guessed?), but that little Fire Impudite who's probably outside of Sheol for the first time in her life. Not a lot of music playing back there. (Which is not "back home" no matter what that one memory is trying to suggest to me.) Focus on the goal, Leo, and right now the way to the goal is staying sharp while I play out the con I wrote.

I go hunting through the crowd for fire masks.

The Habbalite of Fire would stand out if she were wearing another image entirely. It's not what she looks like in the skin-deep sense, it's the way she stands. She doesn't even have to _move_ to radiate that confidence and authority. She must deal occasionally with more powerful Servitors of Fire, with people who can look down at her and make her bend her neck, but I have never seen it except with the Prince of Fire himself. And even then, she didn't _cower_. I cowered. She demonstrated perfect confidence in her own service to him. Respect, admiration, nothing more. Here, she is ever so sure that she's a god among animals.

But she heard what the attendant said. Demons and angels among us. Even through the fluttering cloth flames of her mask, she's clearly watching for what might be incoming hostiles.

And there's a smaller figure at her side, half a step back. A glass of probably-not-water clutched in her hands, and her mask is a paler imitation of the Habbie's. As if someone reached into the bag and pulled out the store-brand knockoff, the _not quite as good_ that permeates every aspect of working for that...Captain, I suppose, last I heard. Unless she's grabbed another distinction since. If she gets out of here with that artifact in hand, that will mean no revenge, and a Geas shoving handfuls of dissonance into my soul over and over again until I catch up and fix that.

So I only get the one shot. And that one shot starts now, this is the aim as I sight through the sniper rifle's scope at someone about to walk into view, because Zhune steps up to the Habbalite to begin a conversation, and I step up behind her and take her Impudite away.

The poor kid's too used to being pushed around to even realize she should resist when I loop an arm over her shoulders and spin her away, walk her three steps back, shift to the left, around some ethereal trying to be incomprehensibly horrific and just coming across as excessively tentacled, and we're out of sight of the one who holds her leash. (Mostly metaphorical. That supervisor only went in for one type of bondage.) "Hey, kid," I say, and give her my best Lilim smile. "What's your name?"

"Luna?" She must be new, or she'd already have had that worked out of her. Never answer a question with what sounds like another question. The Habbalite doesn't like it. "Who are--"

"Leah," I say, and tap my sunglasses to shift them down my nose fractionally. Not quite far enough to look at her over the tops of them, or violate the mask rule. (Do I want to find out what happens if someone takes their mask off in public? Only if someone else is doing it.) "Nice to meet you. You're here with the Habbalite, right? Fire. Nice mask."

"Thank you," Luna says, and this is the part where I get to work out what I can do with her. If she's cunning and cautious, or ambitious and not very bright, or _too_ smart, well, best we can do is shove her out of the picture. But what I'm hoping for is that certain old tastes stay the same, and the Habbalite still likes assistants who are terrified of her, desperate to escape, and sure there'll never be any way out except to obey perfectly until sold away.

Which is true, really. Never heard of anyone ever getting away from her before she gave them up of her own choice, unless you count soul-death, which I don't. Not with how that worked out for that idiot Lilim who should've known better than to run. You can wait out nearly anything, and waiting is better than death.

"So what I'm thinking, Luna," I say, arm resting lightly over her shoulders, "is that this is your first time in the Marches. Am I right?"

"Yes," Luna says, almost _shyly_ , and because this poor little Taker is not that great of an actor, I think that's honest. Poor kid. I wonder if she was made this way; demons who grow up from demonlings in Sheol don't have squishy spots left by the time they fledge, but being made as a demon means you've got all the brains and the power and no clue what sort of Hell you're in for. "I should get back to my supervisor--"

"But you don't want to." This is the line where I get my answer, even if she doesn't realize she's giving it to me. "You'd rather not. And Luna, I can't blame you for that."

She freezes up under me. Good answer. She's not stupid. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says, brisk and precise, and turns her face away from me, slipping out from my arm. Which I allow, because this won't work if she feels like I'm doing the trapping. "I should get back."

"If you like. But do you want to hear a secret? C'mon. It'll be fun. It's all about you, and you don't even have to take my word for it, because I can prove it." I offer her a hand, palm up. "I wouldn't even be telling you this, but you Need to know. And look. It's a freebie. I swear."

She stares at me through the mask, and shivers. "Who are you? Really?"

"Theft," I say. "A party like this, and no one invited us, so of course we showed up. Look over there, and you'll see my partner talking with your Punisher." The crowd's parted, and when I nod in the right direction, she turns to see just that. Zhune and her Habbalite, engaged in polite, tense conversation. Zhune knows how to drive a bargain. He'll handle his end of the con just fine without any of my interference, and he'll let me take care of this myself. Never mind if he wants to be the one in charge all the time, I'm the one with the _plans_. "We need a little help with our plans, _you_ need a little help with your bid, because there are angels on the prowl already and they brought more to bid with than you did. Now, do you want to hear this secret, or don't you?"

"Not unless you tell me why you're offering," Luna says. She won't look at me, not when there's her supervisor to watch for signs of anger, annoyance, boredom. Boredom's the most dangerous. Anger burns itself out after a while, but boredom can just keep going and going until you start looking for a way to make her angry. Deliberate punishment is finite.

"Simple. I want to cut a deal with you. Once I tell you this secret, there's a much better chance you'll agree. So the first taste is free, and afterwards, you can make an informed choice." I raise two fingers, and grin like the Boss. "I promise. No obligations but what you've agreed to."

"Fine," she says, fast and defensive and trying for airy, but failing. She hasn't got the right supervisor to learn acting. "You say you have _proof_ , then show me."

"Sure. C'mon. We need to stop by a lobby and then get back fast." I offer her my hand again, and this time, she takes it.

On the balcony I choose, we pass Vaina stepping out of his room. And I wink at him on the way past, Impudite trailing behind me. Not sure if he can see that through the sunglasses, but so what? As Zhune would say, style counts best if you have it even when nobody's looking.

I sweep open the curtain to the lobby for her, and tune my smile to her reactions. Impudite of Fire's always an odd mix, almost as bad as Impudite of Death, for having that whispering urge of _burn it all down_ mixed up with the desire to keep the pretty pets alive for yourself. All Words take all Bands, Vapula's idiot restrictions aside, but some things don't quite _mesh_. In any case, she could do better. Find something that works for who she is, and not who someone else wants her to be.

"Hello," I say to the attendant at the table, who might even be the same one as before. "Can you tell me if a specific resource has already been added to someone's pool of points?"

"Yes," the attendant says, and smiles back at us. She opens up her book.

I squeeze Luna's hand lightly, and ask, "Have I been added to anyone's pool?"

"No," the attendant says.

"How about my partner. You remember him, the guy with the jaguar mask and the spiky sword. Him?"

"No," the attendant says.

"So what about the two people we came in with? Either of them?"

"No," the attendant says, and Luna's pulse is speeding up beneath my thumb. This kid isn't _stupid_ , and she knows where I'm going with this.

"Well, I'd be surprised if they were. How about this kid here?"

"Yes," the attendant says. "Would you like to know how many points she's worth?"

"I don't know." I look at Luna, who's back to frozen again. It's a good strategy for her background. The worst way to respond to a threat around that supervisor is to try to _run_. Even fighting back, which is a bad plan, gets you better results than flight. "Do you want to know how many points you're worth in your Habbalite's bidding pool?"

"No," she says.

I take her back out of the lobby. Back to the balcony, where we can look down at all the twisting floors we shouldn't be able to see at the same time. There are dancers to this tune, which barely sounds like music to me, but down on the floor one figure is staring directly at the stage. They're playing your song, you poor sap. "So," I say, and lean on the railing. "That's the secret. She didn't tell you, did she? Sent you out into the ballroom without her while she took care of business."

"No," Luna says. She leans next to me on the railing, arm to arm, and stares down at the back of the Habbalite's head. Still in conversation with Zhune. And if the Habbie looks for her Impudite, he can say, look, she's off with my partner. Keeping her out of the way of overhearing our planning, because we wouldn't want her to find out.

Or maybe his game is telling the Habbie that I've been sent away, nominally to babysit, so that they can work out some backstab on me. That's a good variant; the mark will always believe that you want to screw over someone else. Zhune has picked whatever's working best on her right now, because she's engaged with what he's saying.

"So here's the question," I say. "Do you want to be sold away to this place? The Marches aren't all that bad. Plenty of scope for intellectual pursuits. You'd probably never get a vessel or to the corporeal, if you haven't already. But you could make something of yourself here. If it's anything like I've heard, she'll even ease the transfer by making you love whoever she's selling you to, and by the time that wears off, maybe you'll be used to it."

"It doesn't matter what I want," the Impudite says, "and you're trying to--to hook me and Geas me or betray me to her, just because of whatever you saw. But she knows better. She knows I'll do what I'm told, she doesn't _care_ what I want, so you can tell her and it won't matter."

"Hey," I say. "Kid. You misunderstand me. Theft, not Game. We have friends in Freedom. _I_ have friends over there. If I weren't busy with other plans, I might try to steal you away on principle, because you're cute enough that she picked you, and smart enough to wait for proof before you listened to me. As it is? I'm not going to try anything unless you're willing to play along."

"I don't believe you," she says softly.

"Want me to swear to it?" That gets a sharp look, and I shrug at her. "Here's the situation. Either she'll win the auction, and you'll be sold to someone in the Marches, or she'll lose the auction, and you'll be sold to someone else later on. A house-trained Impudite who does what she's told. Plenty of people who like that, especially other Habbalah who don't have the patience to work with raw material. If you want to take that chance, I will not do anything to steal you away."

She says nothing, watching her supervisor. Or maybe she's watching me sidelong; there are enough gaps in that mask that she could be, not enough for me to track her attention well without looking at her directly. And it's important for this that I not look too invested.

"But here's the deal," I say. "If you want to get away from her, I'll try to help you. Can't promise that _my_ Boss would take you, because I can't make promises for anyone else, but there's a damn good chance of it. Unless you're really attached to stability, Theft is _fun_. We do what we want and we take what we want and if you see something you like, you make it yours." More or less true. Edited for content. Let's not lie, here. I've had a lot of fun now and again working for Theft. "I will try to get you away from her, to the best of my ability without breaking my other plans, and find you someone else to take you in. Someone who's _not_ a Habbalite."

"And if it doesn't work," Luna says. "If she catches up with me."

"Then you tell her that you got hooked and Geased by the wicked, clever Lilim of Theft who tried to make you run away, and who tried to steal you, and you're so very sorry, it's not your fault, you were just too _weak_ to resist." I turn to face her directly, because this part is important. And now I do have her full attention. "Tell me, Luna, if it comes to that, if that's the worst possibility, do you think she'll do anything worse to you than what she does when she's _bored_?"

She stares at me through her mask, and just shakes her head mutely. Poor kid. Poor little pawn, and if I'm not careful I'm going to feel _bad_ about this, but I mean to use her in a way that leaves her better off than before. Because damn near anything is better than where she is now.

"So. You want my help?"

"What will it cost me?"

Not even "would" in that question. I didn't think it would be this easy, but, I don't know, what would I have done if someone walked up to me and given me the same choice, when I was there?

Probably I would've been too scared to accept. Assumed it was a setup. This Impudite's better at running for freedom than I was. I was a very obedient Calabite.

"Plenty," I say. "But nothing more than you can pay. You'll owe me, and I won't use that debt to send you back to her, or any other Habbalite. Never one of them. Frankly, if you want to go work for Vapula or Fleurity, you're on your own there."

"You know someone," she says. "Who worked for her before."

"She's had a lot of assistants. At least one showed up in Theft." And for one sudden instant I can understand what that Lilim _meant_ , how this could be personal even though it's not any of my business at all. "One of them was a Lilim, and he didn't make it out."

"I heard about him," Luna says. "As a warning. Not to try to run." Which sounds like maybe I went and stepped on my own game by bringing up the wrong example, but she turns back to look at that Habbalite again, and her knuckles go white where she's gripping the balcony railing. "Get me away from her and I'll owe you anything."

"Deal," I say. Which means I'd better get it done. Nothing holds me to this promise but myself, but I have to hold onto _something_ , and today, it's not going to be my partner.


	27. A Flashback, In Which I Exist

There was a clear line between not being and being. Like opening my eyes, but before I saw I _knew_. The knowing poured into me and filled me up, gasoline waiting for a match, and then I _was_ myself. Calabite means you destroy. Calabite means you're cracked and scarred when you're first born, already angry at the world and ready to make it pay. Calabite means you are made in His image, and He's the one with the match, open your eyes and there's fire inside you and fire outside and the world is ablaze, from the flames at your ankles to the sparks in His eyes.

It was that simple at the start. Calabite and Fire, like they were one word, or even one Word, and they weren't even tangled up together in my mind but the knowing was that they were one. Feeding back and forth on each other like oxygen and fuel.

I opened my eyes to see Him, caught in His hands, and He was all the world that could be, should be, needed to be. Fire in my mind and on my tongue.

And he turned me around to her, and said, "Satisfied?"

She was not, and we both knew it.

I followed her home. She explained to me that the disappointment was not the fault of our Prince, because we could never hold him at fault, but my fault for not being what she wanted. She taught me everything I needed to know about fire and pain and obedience, and when she was done, she sold me off.

That's all. That's what I was. That's where I started. There is no _before_ in which I exist.


	28. An Interlude, In Which Questions Are Not Asked

"It's so kind of you," said the old woman, and fumbled in her purse for her key. "And I hadn't even introduced myself yet--"

"Ash Torres," he said, and followed her into the apartment. "I've been here less than a month, and I haven't really expected introductions. People keep to themselves in big cities. Here, let me help you with that." He set the grocery bags down in the tiny kitchen, admired her view--which was not quite as good as his, but why should he mention that?--and spent a good twenty minutes talking about her work as a restaurant critic. He left with three hooks laid for future use, and a list of recommendations for microbrew beers he ought to seek out.

Which was really very sweet of her. Some humans could be lovely, no matter what he'd thought about them back home. Even without making them do as they were told.

Back in his own apartment (not quite under his name, no, but still _his_ , for at least five years with option to renew the contract, and of course he would always renew the contract with Syntyche, even if he didn't owe her so much that it was only by polite fiction voluntary) he put away his own groceries, coffee and cream and beer and bird seed, and then he went out to the balcony to sit in the cold. To watch the light fade over river and buildings until sunset, when Essence slipped inside. (More valuable than coffee, but, he had to admit, not as delicious.)

Ash laid his arms on the balcony railing, and stared at lights reflected in the water, for some time before he made up his mind. When he walked back inside the apartment, his fingers with stiff with cold. He sat down on the couch, the pretty, useful, life-saving shoes that Syntyche had sold him propped on the coffee table, and dialed in.

Hold music, for several minutes, and then the click over to silence. "It's me," he said. "Ash. I think I figured it out."

Syntyche didn't say anything, but he could hear her breathing on the other side of the line.

"Anyone could figure it out," he said, "if they started looking. You need to mark out more information to keep this a secret. But I don't think many people would think to ask, or care, because it's not the sort of thing other people care about. Only people like you and like me. There are so many Sisters out there, we can't much care what happens to most of them, except on general principle. Not unless it's personal."

"This isn't any of your business," she said.

"But that's how I put it together," he said. "He and I were made on the same day. You didn't even try to get a replacement for Levon, you went without a proper assistant for _months_ , until Fire killed him. Or remade him. I'm not sure which."

He waited for a response, and she did not say anything.

"You're not sure which either," he said. He wanted his view and his coffee and someone smiling at him, but what he had was answers, which were the only thing in the world that could be valuable without being forced. "Even though we both know what the answer is supposed to be. That's why this whole thing--the Geas and the assistance and what you did and didn't tell him--that's why it wasn't making sense. Because you don't know what you want out of it. You don't know if you want him to fail and prove he's someone else entirely, or succeed and--and that doesn't prove anything. Because if he succeeds, that still doesn't make him someone else."

"Ash," she said, "you ought to stay out of this."

"I know. But you've got to let this go, Syntyche. This is the second time you've run the test, and if he lives through this one, if you find a way to hit him with another test... You're testing to destruction to prove a point, and it's not _fair_."

He wanted something from her. Congratulations for being so clever, or a reminder that life wasn't fair, or a scolding for prying into what wasn't his business, or even some sort of question. _What do you think I should do? Who do you think he is? Why did you investigate this at all?_

She didn't give him any of that. Silence on the line. Not even the sound of writing, typing, papers moving across her desk.

Of course she didn't give him anything. The first thing she taught him: nothing in life is free.

"I thought you should know," he said. "In case you really don't want anyone else figuring it out. Sorry to bother you about it."

"Never speak about this to anyone," Syntyche said, and he didn't try to resist as an unpaid debt turned into a Geas. The second thing she taught him: always pay your debts. Whatever he thought of the situation, this part of it was fair.

"Good night, Syntyche."

"Good night, Ash," she said. She ended the call, and he was glad that he didn't have to. That she was...well. Angry, yes. But not exactly at him.

He couldn't imagine caring for anyone so much that losing them would make him...like that. Except maybe if that anyone was Syntyche herself, and he didn't need to worry about anything _there_. She was ancient and powerful, and sufficiently respectful of Mother, sufficiently in debt, to not be a threat. When the last war came and the forces of Heaven and Hell lined up to end their silly little feud, Syntyche would be on the sidelines, gathering the data. Selling it to the winning side afterward.

It was nice to know some things in the world were entirely stable. He could depend on Syntyche the way he could depend on an actual Geas. They made things _work_ right.

Ash checked his watch. The auction was in progress. Maybe even over by now, hard to say with the way time slid around in the Marches, but probably somewhere near the end. And she was right. It wasn't any of his business. Figuring this out had been expensive, expensive and pointless, a stupid personal project he never should have started. Like a Sister working for Dark Humor had told him once, right after she hurt him, _Curiosity killed the cat._

_Satisfaction brought it back._

Ash sang a message to someone he couldn't even charge for it, and, well. That was probably stupid. Expensive and pointless and stupid, as any Sister would tell him.

But he had his own apartment, vessel, portfolio, his own _life_ on the corporeal, to do with as he liked within the confines laid around him by debt and caution. He could do what he wanted with his own resources, even if it was stupid. That was half the point of Freedom right there.


	29. An Interlude, In Which Questions Are Answered

Luna was right there on hand, when Althea turned to look for her. Exactly where her supervisor had left her. The conversation with the other Magpie was over, and that left the two of them alone.

Yes, there were hundreds of people about, but what did any of those matter?

"Stand up straight," Althea said, though Luna had been sure she was, she _did_ stand up straight, but somehow it was never enough when the Habbalite looked at her. "Don't slouch, sweetheart, it makes you look nervous."

Luna stood up as straight as she could, and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Better," Althea said. She set her fingers beneath the Impudite's chin, tilted her face up. "Even if you're only a demon, that still makes you better than any of these little dreamlings. You're stronger than them, and they ought to remember that. So please, darling, try to project a little better, would you?"

"I will," Luna said, because it was better to give the wrong answer than to not answer.

"Maybe we should go back to the room," Althea said. "We could get in some remedial training before the auction starts, and you'd look so much _tidier_ if you only minded your posture properly. Would you like that?"

"Yes?" Luna said, because she could not figure out which answer was worse. The answer that was a lie was _worse_ , it churned in her guts like flames did across her hands when the instruction began, but the worse the answer made her feel, the more likely Althea was to accept it.

But she had done it _wrong_ , because her supervisor sighed, and said, "That's a question, doll. Not an answer. Luna, sometimes I just don't know what to do with you."

Not a question. It was safe to not answer. To try to look penitent and stand straight and project confidence and meet the Habbalite's gaze through the masks and be anything but herself, all at once.

The eyeless thing on the stage said, "The auction will begin in two hours real time, noticeably sooner relative time." And then it began to sing again, some peculiar old song in a language Luna had never heard.

Althea stood so very still in front of her.

And then the Habbalite said, as if there had been no pause at all, "There just isn't time to do this properly before the auction starts. I hate to disappoint you, sweetie, but you'll have to wait until we get back home. Do your best in the meantime, okay?"

"I will," Luna said.

Althea turned away from her to watch the singing creature, and Luna stared at her back. _You are lying to me._ She had proof. She knew, confirmed by an outside source with no reason to care what she believed, confirmed by another outside source with some reason to mess with her head, that this was a _lie_.

And if Althea was lying about this, what else might she have lied about?

All her life, months and months of it, Luna had felt that she stood in a windowless room and it was burning down around her, the walls and furniture and floor all on fire, and her supervisor had said that there was no way out.

But there was a window set high in the wall, one she'd never been able to see through the flames. Someone had tapped on the window and said, _Up here. If you can get here. Grab my hand and I'll get you out._

Who knew what really waited on the other side of the window?

There was a way out. It didn't matter what she might owe, what she might find on the other side. There was a way _out_ if she could grab that hand.


	30. In Which People Ought To Listen To Me When I Know What I'm Talking About, And That's Pretty Much Every Time I'm Talking

The consult with Zhune is five minutes of indicating what we're looking at and talking about innocuous things, because it's too near the auction's start--I keep forgetting that time doesn't work the same way in here as it does on the corporeal--to head back to the room for a real private conversation.

He's pegged the Nightmares Servitor, which I couldn't: that couple in perfect Regency ball wear turn out to be Balseraph and ethereal servant, using fan and handkerchief to communicate privately while they scout out the competition. It doesn't sound like Zhune's worked out quite what to do with them yet, but he doesn't think they can win the bid, either; more likely they're here, maybe with a pair of ethereals we haven't identified yet, to jump the winner on the way out. It's not a bad plan. It's not unlike ours.

"At least the bidding starts soon," Zhune says idly, watching the center of the room and the singer there. By which he means, _Where is the rest of your clever plan?_

"About time," I say. "I've been getting bored." By which I mean, _I have everything in hand._ I'm not sure if he believes that, and it's certainly not true, but so what? Things will work out, or they won't. He's the one who keeps telling me not to stress things so much.

Maybe if he wants me to stress the work a little less he shouldn't be hitting me with the cold facts of reality while I'm trying to pull off a complex multi-party double-con in the land of dreams while on a deadline, but there's no making my partner pay attention to the needs of the job when he gets like this. 

Speaking of needs of the job, it's time for our second hit. Which he knows well enough to split off for, even if he's not happy about it. Him towards the Nightmares demon, me towards the pair of angels who have finally reconvened on a dance floor--well, directly overhead, but as I follow the curve of this one for a few dozen meters, it turns from ceiling into wall, and then eventually the loop brings me to where they're standing in a quiet consolation a bit less verbally abbreviated than mine and Zhune's was.

Catherine's saying something about points totals, which I would be paying more attention to if I were serving a Word that cared about playing things fair. I'm not sure what Valefor would even say if I showed up with a present I _bought_. Points matter to the god running this show, but--

\--wait. No. If the god cared that much about point totals, it wouldn't be giving us an obvious way to game the system and find out what everyone else is carrying. These points are here to distract us. Make sure we watch each other. Zhune and I have _run_ this con, and it's all about giving people the wrong problem to focus on. Forget the points. They matter the way the cards matter in a rigged game of poker. And if you don't know who the mark at the table is, it's you. The last time I got pulled into one of those games, I got out by spotting the other mark and making sure he didn't drop the trap on me.

There is a trap to drop on someone. I know it. And if a _god_ set it up, that still means something even if the last gods are only ethereals, then what I need to do is drop it on the right person.

"Is there something wrong?" Vaina asks, and I realize I've just been staring at them for a few seconds, while they wait for me to speak.

"Maybe," I say, and smile tightly. The _I have it under control_ expression that says they should be keeping an eye out for themselves, and I wonder if they can even read that. Catherine looks to be getting the message, while her Cherub is professionally paranoid regardless. "We spotted Nightmares. And try to stay away from the Habbie's kid, so we don't spook anyone early. Everything going fine on your end?"

"We're keeping up with plans, more or less," Catherine says. "The time flow is...erratic. I thought we were on standard time, or fast time, but it's changing."

"Yeah. We're not far from the final call." I tuck my hands in my pockets, rock on my heels, and try to put the pieces together. These two could watch for what I need if I could tell them more. Zhune could get me all the pieces if he weren't so distracted by the Marches thing and the--whatever it is that had him doing _that_ back in the room. It feels like it's about Penny, but he was the one who told me to call; I'm sure he didn't know I called before that. The conversation would have been different if he'd known. So maybe it's really about Eder, and what I did, and Zhune will have to cope because there's no taking that one back, even if I wanted to. "There's something just a little weird going on. I can't put my finger on it yet. Tip-of-the-tongue sort of thing, you know? So if you can just keep an eye out for anything..." And I have to laugh. "Odd."

"In the Marches," Catherine says, and smiles wryly back at me. We'd get along fine if we were the sort of people who were allowed to. But that's not how the world works, so I run the con and keep on moving. "I'll see what we can do."

"I'm always watching," Vaina says, like it's reassuring.

It sort of is.

I flip a breezy wave to them and wander around the curving floors, watching ethereals and figments that I can't tell apart from each other, not with no clear theme to which ones have been created (or imported?) for this event. Luna probably needs another check-in, so that I can find out if she's ready to run on signal. Or if she's already had her mind resonated into a pulp, and needs to be...dragged out, I guess. I can't leave her behind, not if she gives me any chance at all to pull her out.

She'll do fine with Theft. She's sharp enough to pick up on hints, suspicious enough to not take candy from strangers without checking for poison, and brave enough to take a chance with the devil she doesn't know. That impetus to run like Hell will do her good, so long as she figures out how to _stop_ running and be a good little Magpie. That...took me a while. I wasn't exactly skipping out on orders, wasn't stupid enough for that, but after that time spent Renegade and living in Heliopolis with no master but myself, yeah, it took time to adjust. To not resent every job I wasn't paid for or wouldn't have liked to take.

But I'm fine now. Theft isn't where I started, but it's where I live. Its refrain runs through the back of my head whenever I think about it, whenever I _don't_ think about it. Keep on running and don't get caught. We'll get her started on the running, and she'll be a bright-eyed charming Impudite of Theft in no time.

It wouldn't be bad to have one around. Maybe she'd get along with Zhune. He can be so damn charming, exactly like a Taker, when he feels like it's worth his time, or he just wants to project that image. If we get her out and the artifact and clear this Geas and get home and the Boss is in a good mood, a whole lot of if to chain a row, maybe I could keep her. I mean. We could keep her. Let Zhune think it's his own idea and that he's giving out presents, and he'd be happy. He likes to drop presents on me. Cars and watches and lighters, cash and cigarettes and beer. As if the act of giving is a means of establishing hierarchy and some weird Djinnish version of expressing affection all at once.

But Zhune never lets me keep the presents he gives me. He told me once that he'd never steal from me, because I'm his partner. Eventually I figured out that what he meant was _You're mine so what's yours is mine,_ and it's not stealing for him to dispose of what he owns himself.

I'd like to steal Luna away, but maybe she's better off with someone who isn't us. Not anyone terrible like Henry. Just...someone else. Plenty of Magpies out there who could use an apprentice who is, let's be honest, already pretty well-trained into paying attention and acting biddable and scheming quietly for later revenge.

I'm finally setting up to get that later revenge, and it's not even mine. That's some sort of irony.

The singer in the center of the room falls silent, and then claps her hands together once. A single chime rings through the air, reverberating from the walls until everyone's fallen silent. All eyes on the stage.

"The auction begins," says the attendant. "The first item available is the Mindful Coronet. Bidding begins at one point. All bids are silent. Raise your points card with the number you wish to bid firmly in mind. Payment will be collected immediately after the final bid. I hear two," she says, face turning towards the jackal-headed woman who holds up a white card. "I hear five. I hear seven. Seven. I hear eight. I hear fourteen."

Everyone is watching the auction.

I watch everyone else.

Nightmares is paranoid. Now that I know who it is, I can spot the shifting and the watching, the way he's positioned his ethereals--that's all three of them that he brought with him, and some might be demons, but I doubt it--to watch his back, watch the exit, keep him circled and protected. (Not a Balseraph. Not an Impudite. Habbalite, I think. It's a regular Habbalite party in here.) The Regency-themed ethereal with the fan taps it against her lips and stares at the two Fire demons. A passing attendant offers drinks to each of them in turn, her head turned slightly away to see who she means to serve next.

I follow her gaze to Vaina and Catherine, who are sticking close. Nearly arm in arm, except for keeping their hands free for any sudden fights. No ethereal scuffles have broken out that I've noticed, everyone on their best behavior as the first item gets its bidding in.

"Forty-one," the attendant says. Her voice carries across the room as if she's standing three meters in front of me on the stage, and she speaks with a professional sort of cheer. "Forty-one. I hear forty-one. Forty-one going once."

The jackal-headed woman strides briskly over to Catherine, and accepts the card offered to her. She holds up the two together, and the attendant says, "I hear forty-five."

And it sells for forty-five. Some four-point item or thereabout has just been swapped, and I wonder what Catherine got out of it, that it was worth reducing her point pool when she needs that one last item. Reducing her flexibility, even, because...wait. Because they can't bid anything _less_ than their full Song set and expect it to be worthwhile. Vaina won't teach them selectively.

I glance over at Vaina, who watches the crowd more than the stage. He knows where to expect trouble.

An attendant's eyeless face turns toward him as she passes.

I check the next attendant. She's watching Nightmares. Next one: watching Catherine and Vaina. Next one: the two Fire Servitors, Zhune lurking nearby--but there's one watching him, her face turning slightly as she walks past with tray and glasses.

There's one watching me, even if I can't spot it. Fuck. That's the trap. It's for us. Or--for Fire and Water and Nightmares, all of them no friend to the god of whales in a variety of ways, and then a trap for us two Magpies who walked right in without ever being wanted. But I think it'll take us if--

Wait. No. This is important. The jackal-headed woman strides up to the center stage, and when she reaches the edge of the sphere, the telescope she had slung across her back vanishes. Gone in an instant. I look back to Vaina and Catherine; the staff he's been carrying in his tail is gone now. Payment due immediately on completion of the auction, and the god does mean immediately.

I hope it plays by its own stated rules, or I don't think I'm getting out of this one alive.

The woman accepts a glittering blue circlet from the attendant's hands, and then turns to stride briskly away. Right for a lobby exit, and no one tries to stop her, despite a few hungry glances towards what she carries. Whatever Catherine got out of the deal she's happy with already.

And I need to get Luna out of here before she's bid.

I need to get _everyone_ out of here before the last bid, when the trap closes. Because it won't close until the prize item is sold off, I'm sure of that. This is a god who plays by rules, who tells us the rules, who _enforces_ them, and we do not want to be the last ones standing when the rules are no longer in effect.

I need two people to stick around that long. Me, and the Habbalite of Fire. Everyone else is a distraction. Not even the kind I can manipulate usefully, because I don't have the _time_ , the second item's just started its bid, and I flit my way between people in this crowd as deftly as Zhune ever could to catch up with my partner.

He glances sideways at me, and doesn't need to ask out loud what the problem is. Unfortunately, this is more complicated than I can explain through significant glances alone; I'm stuck with that old embarrassing larcenous standby, furtive whispering. "I need you to grab the Impudite and haul her outside."

He arches his eyebrows. _Now?_

"I don't have time for an argument. The plan's changing." Oh, what's a lie he won't see through immediately? Why not the truth. The best kind. "Prices due on completion, and she needs to not _be_ here, or they'll take her automatically. Haul her to the nearest exit, walk her outside, and tell her to stay. She's good at following orders."

"And I do this without the Habbie objecting how, exactly?" He's better at whispering than I am. He makes it sound relaxed, casual, and only incidentally extremely quiet.

"Tell her that your partner just worked out what Nightmares is up to, and you need to confuse them about which of the two fire masks is the one to worry about. So you're just going to park the kid on the other side of the room until the bid. Seriously, do I need to come up with all the plans here?"

He stares down at me through the jaguar mask, narrow-eyed. "What aren't you telling me?"

"The rest of the fucking plan, because I'm in a _hurry_. Can I count on you to get the kid out, or are we going to ruin this con over your mid-job paranoia? If you don't trust me to run one simple con--"

"Not that simple," he mutters, but he rolls his shoulders, fingers sliding down to the hilt of his sword. "Fine. Try not to hurt yourself before I get back."

I leave him to handle the extraction--he'll be better at talking the Habbie around than I would anyway--and aim for Nightmares next.

"Hey," I say, and grin at the man with the stunning fashion sense, if for the wrong century. "Want to hear a secret? It's going to cost you."

"No," he murmurs, looking down his nose at me. "Go away, little girl."

I adjust my sunglasses, and shoot a glance over to where Catherine and Vaina are standing. They're watching the auction, the crowd around them, not _me_. Good. "Yeah, well, don't tell me what you fucking want when I can see it better than you can. You, Mr. Nightmares, Need to know what the catch is. I can tell you the catch. The clock chimes midnight, the auction's over, and this trap falls down around all of us demons stupid enough to wait for the last call. I don't intend to be caught standing here."

His posture goes rigid, and he reaches a hand up to his white domino, as if he's about to rip it off. But that would be a bad plan, and he's not stupid. Nightmares, after all. "You can't--"

"I can know," I say, and resist the urge to fidget. Why does this asshole have to be so slow about this when I'm trying to get things done? "Don't believe me, fine. I'm cutting out before the clock strikes. I'd recommend you do the same."

"Why--"

"Because if you run, and live through this," I say chirpily, "you'll owe me. Or stay behind and find out the hard way. You can always leave your points with someone else to bid if you want to have it both ways, but you see the way the crowd just dropped again? People leave every time a bid's over. And it's not just because what they wanted got won, or because they don't like the decor. It's because they know better than us what to expect of a god."

He stares at me an instant longer.

Doesn't matter if he believes me or not. I can work with either.

But he spins around and shoves a white card into the hand of his flirtation partner. "All the way to the top," he says, "whatever's necessary, and don't believe I won't find you if you try to run with the results." Then he stalks away towards an exit, the tails of his coat snapping elegantly behind him as if he brought his own wind machine for the dramatic gestures. Wish I could look that good while fleeing.

Next stop, the angels, and I dash over to them, all but sprinting as I can around people. "Vaina," I say, and wonder just how much the god wants _him_ , if it's willing to break its rules to keep him inside, "I need a favor, and I'm sorry to ask, but it's urgent."

"What?" he asks, looking--the way Zhune does when we're about to hit resistance. That same damn expression. No, it's not the expression, it's the same posture, the concept of _I stand in front and my partner doesn't get hurt._

Never mind. Irrelevant. "I got John to swipe the kid," I explain, let my sentences rush faster than they need to, I am _breathless_ here, "before the Habbie could slap her down with an emotion that would keep us from pulling her out, the Habbie got _suspicious_ and we had to move first, but Nightmares tagged him and followed. He needs backup and I can't _leave_. If she sees me go, she'll know what's going on, and it's going to turn into a brawl in here, I'm going to get tossed back to my Heart before we ever finish this out. I just need you two to go lend him backup. I don't know if the kid will yet, but he needs help and I can't _help_ John with this. Two minutes, show of force, keep Nightmares from jumping him. Please."

They share a quick look, and then Catherine says, "Of course."

" _Hurry_ ," I say, try to make it a request and it doesn't take much work to shove that urgency into my voice. It's real. This room is clearing, a slow trickle out to the exits, and someone's got to go keep an eye on Zhune while I can't.

And. I don't exactly what them to get hurt, either. Not in some trap like this. It'd be one thing if we had to fight over our opposed goals, and it might yet come to that, but this would be a stupid, pointless way for some perfectly decent angels to go down, even if I am pulling a con on them.

No wonder Zhune's angry. I shouldn't be thinking like that.

But all that aside, I want this place as empty as possible before it's time for the last auction call.

He will be so angry at me. He'll get over it. Not my fault the god declared the auction to have no re-entry.


	31. An Interlude, In Which My Judgment Is Questioned

The wall of dark water stretched higher than the sky, if there were indeed any true sky to the Marches. Down to the gray sand that cut off, the line defined as if a sharp knife had sliced through the space, where the water began. He could see nothing within, nothing but murky water and an even darker space that might be the sphere they had so recently stood inside. Or perhaps it did not, and he could not _know_ , because the exit had dropped them all onto the sand, and his attunement said nothing but _not destroyed yet_ and _somewhere in that direction_.

Zhune asked again. All he got from the Symphony was the same as before, and he reached out to discover _more_ (though his own real and literal hands, insofar as anything in this place was real, pressed against the water and could not get in, could not claw him in towards where he needed to be) and the Symphony said...no. Refused to deliver the information he needed.

That was the problem with the Symphony right there, the reason angels were endlessly reactive to the actions of Hell. The angels sat back and _listened_ , when any demon could tell them that what the music of reality needed was a firm hand to tell it what to do. Drag the information out, take a note that represented your own _self_ and use it to force reality to bend to your will. The Symphony didn't need an audience, it needed someone to stand over it with a whip and tell it what to do.

Much like certain people he could think of.

"I don't understand," said someone behind him, and he could not tell which of them, did not care. He did not care for what the angels thought right now, or that Nightmares creature that had gone scuttling off without so much as a snap of its teeth in the face of so many observing it at once, or any of the ethereals that slipped out of the water and ran off to wherever such things went.

"It's a one-way exit," said a voice he did know, could not stop recognizing, the voice of that thing and. He turned around and looked at them, the three creatures sent outside with him (like a dog pushed out into the yard, door slammed in its face), and they were all watching him. Two angels. One irrelevant demon. The one who had spoken was the one he would refrain from disassembling only so that he could give it to his Prince.

And he did want to take someone apart, Forces shredding between his hands like some pale, desperate imitation of the way Valefor would do it. Because when the Boss wanted someone taken apart, she could be so tidy. Destroy what you don't want to keep, and maybe reuse its pieces for something you do. Efficient.

"I know that," said the second angel, who stood with her arms tightly folded, staring at the water now instead of at him. "But I don't understand why she sent us outside. That demon didn't even try anything, I don't think he _meant_ to. He looked like..." And there she stopped, face all uncertainty.

"Like he was running away," said that thing, and it looked at him. In a way he did not want it to. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Yes," Zhune said. "The plan changed."

"If she's just trying to swipe the artifact," the Mercurian muttered, "there are easier ways to do it. Did she not know we couldn't come back in?"

"Of course she knew," Zhune said, and he would have howled at the Symphony, gone for its throat, if he had any chance of thereby carving out from its corpse the information he needed. Time stretched out around him like the moment in a car crash where there was no contact with the ground, and the impact was coming. But not quite there yet. Only rushing towards his eyes. "She sent us outside to lock us out. She's gone and changed the fucking plan, and didn't tell me what the new plan was, because she knew I'd stop her. Which means it's something--dangerous." Destructive. Stupid. And she called him to much in love with risk, when he knew the line to walk, knew _exactly_ where it lay to pace along its edge, while she ran blindfolded ahead of him and laughed.

"What does she even want?" asked the Mercurian, staring at the water, and maybe if everyone went and stared the god would let them _back in_. Or not. If the water swallowed up another one, if water took this partner too, he would find a way to kill a god and present its corpse to his master as some sort of apology for fucking up this badly.

He had lost partners before. So many that he lost count in turn. A few thousand years would do that to a man, and what was one more? Let the stupid kid burn herself out if that's what she meant to do, and he would move on. He always moved on. He'd find a replacement, someone less volatile, maybe a little less clever, and teach them how to listen to their partner. Do what they were told.

He looked down at the little Impudite, who had taken off her mask, and stared into the water with everyone else. He tried to imagine her as a replacement. Young enough to not know anything inconvenient, to have no bad habits yet. Another babysitting job, and maybe a partner at the end.

But all he could see was the moment when the waters closed over his head, forced their way into his lungs, and the light of the surface fading above him took on another color as the Archangel of Waters took his Lilim in hand and sundered her Forces.

He did not want a replacement. The attunement was still there. He wanted _this_ one back, and he was shaking, he had lost any semblance of pretense and control in front of these angels, and he would simply have to kill all of them to make up for it. Eventually. When it would not be a distraction from getting his partner back.

"She should have just told--"

"She's young. She doesn't know to trust her Cherub yet."

Never mind what the angels were saying behind him, except that the Impudite asked, "Who are you?" And that was a line of questioning that could lead to inconvenient places. If the water spit out his partner and she was a new sort of mess, he could not afford to be in the midst of a fight.

Game face on. Damage control.

He said to the Impudite, "Quiet. We'll explain later." And to the angels, "Can there be another way in? Any other way. We found our way there once before. Or a way to break through the wall, anything."

"I can't imagine how," said the Mercurian wearily. "With what it took to get in there in the first place..."

"If she only wanted to do something dangerous," said that thing, "I can see why she'd send you out, but not why she'd send _us_ out. We wouldn't know to stop her, and might have been able to give some kind of assistance."

"She has bad habits," Zhune said. _The next time he asks me if I need a better leash, I will say yes._ "Picked up from her previous employer. The last time she came up with a clever plan she didn't want me to know about it, she set a building on fire while we were in it, to distract our enemies. And when she gets out of there," and he would not believe this might not be true, "we will go somewhere quiet and have a very long discussion on appropriate problem-solving methods."

"Dear god," said the Mercurian. "Who did she work for last?"

"Fire," Zhune said.

"She said she heard--" That was the little demon, and he had _told_ her to be quiet. She'd have to learn better, though she flushed, and cringed, when all eyes turned on her. "She said she heard, but that was a lie, wasn't it? She knows what my supervisor is like. First-hand."

And it made sense. A horrible kind of sense. Leo had said that, about the Habbalite. A previous supervisor, of course someone he hated, but it had always seemed a perfunctory sort of hate, when the matter came up. No active grudge, not like the Calabite held against recent enemies, but some long-buried piece of history. Until some Lilim went and Geased him to walk up to the Habbalite and _get revenge_.

Zhune would have to find out who that had been, and deal with that too. Not for revenge. Simply to correct the matter. How was he supposed to keep his partner under control if other people wouldn't leave him to his work, and interfered?

But people were looking at him, as if he would know, could confirm or deny what the Impudite had said. As if anything they said or did out here _mattered_ until his partner was back.

A better fucking leash.

"If so," he said, because he was tired of giving these people the truth for free, "she never told me. Whatever her reasons, we need a way back in."

Disturbance echoed faintly past him.

He turned back to the water, and pressed his hands against it, and it would not let him _in_.


	32. In Which The Pressure Increases

The attendant in the center picks up the last item. I would know it as an artifact, as the centerpiece of this event, without any warning or description. It's a rough clay disc the diameter of my cupped hands, and when the attendant holds it up to display, I can see it as she held it a few inches from my face. A very few people left in this half-empty room, the Habbalite and the fan-holding ethereal and me, stare at the center while the others continue to be...figments. I think we're the only real ones left in here.

A disc of fired clay, mottled unevenly in gray-brown shades. Drawn crudely into the left side is the Helltongue glyph for Oceans, and a symbol I don't recognize on the right must be Waters, as if someone marked them into the wet clay with one finger. It is ordinary and ugly and I don't need to touch it to feel the power caught in there. Something strange and ancient, cold seeping into the back of my throat like saltwater again, and it's fighting inside itself still.

I wonder what Belial has planned for it, if he gets it back. Which he won't. That's not in the cards tonight, because even if I can't pull this off, there's a pair of angels waiting outside who do not want it happening. 

This may be the first time since I left Fire that I'm working against his wishes directly, instead of running up against Fire Servitors in some incidental way while getting my work done. I'm pretty okay with that. There was a time when I wanted back in, wanted to be _who_ I was in Fire, but that's behind me now. There's no going to back to who you are, like that stupid proverb about stepping in the same river twice. Here's a better way to look at it: life is like bullets and car crashes, forward momentum and things breaking apart.

I've walked away from a lot of car crashes. One day I won't, and I won't even see that day coming. But that's what life is, and what its end is about. There is no win state. There is only the check at the end of each day: still alive? Yeah? Haven't lost yet.

I haven't lost yet.

"Bidding will begin," says the attendant, "at one point." She doesn't bother naming the artifact. The people who want it know what it is.

Me. The Habbalite. The ethereal bidding for Nightmares. One of these things is not like the other ones, and one of these things needs to get out of here before she wins the auction and complicates things for me.

"I hear fifty," the attendant says, while I stride towards that ethereal. No point in being coy about it now; I lost the chance at making this _sneaky_ when I started moving distracting celestials out of the way. This is no longer a con. This is me lining up a sniper shot, and as I learned the hard way a few times, pulling the trigger doesn't always end the fight. But it sure makes an opening statement that's hard to ignore.

The ethereal flicks open a fan before her face as I approach. She knows--not exactly what I am, but she knows that what I said sent her master running. "Pardon me, but I find myself occupied at the moment," she murmurs, and raises her card up.

"You should go," I tell her. "It's not worth staying. If you win, we'll jump you the instant the artifact's handed over. You'll lose what you paid, and what you won. If you go now, you can at least keep what you brought for the bidding."

"I hear seventy," the attendant says. "Seventy."

The ethereal snaps her fan shut, and taps it against her wrist. "I have nothing to discuss with a creature such as you."

"Okay," I say, "let me put this another way. You can ditch now and explain your failure to your boyfriend _with_ everything he's bidding with still available to hand over, or I can cut you apart here and now, and you can do your explaining when you reassemble at your anchor. Because the rules say I can't attack your soul, but there is not a word in there against the combat of the mind."

"I hear eighty-two," the attendant says. "Eighty-two."

"Sir," she says coldly, "I believe you overestimate your chances against me. You should back away now before doing yourself injury." She raises her card high again.

"I hear a hundred and fourteen," the attendant says. "One hundred and fourteen points."

She can't say I didn't warn her. I pull my knife, which hasn't been bid away yet, and try for her right eye.

Perfect hit, the blade sliding through eye and into her head like--well, she's not pretending to human insides, only human appearance, and it's like stabbing a pillow. She screams, and staggers back off my knife. Not exactly a lethal blow, here in the Marches, but that must've hurt.

"I hear one hundred and thirty points," the attendant says. "One hundred and thirty points."

An arm wraps around my neck from behind, and I _must_ be distracted, because I forgot she came with friends. But her friends are a bunch of ethereals, and I am a _Calabite_. I shove my resonance into whatever's trying to jump me, and its arm dissolves. The ethereal with the fan's running, ninety degrees from me as she follows the dance floor's curve, and I run after her. I am faster than she is, so much faster in this place and wearing these shoes that running feels like flying.

"One hundred and thirty points," the attendant says, "going once," and the ethereal with the fan waves her card over her head as she runs.

I spin on my heel, whip around a one-armed man trying to flail at me with a sharp little knife, and run back in the opposite direction. These floors circle, and that fan-wielder's still looking back over her shoulder, not ahead.

"I hear one hundred and thirty-five points," the attendant says. "One hundred and thirty-five points."

I catch Nightmares' pet ethereal on the circuit, her eyes widening behind her silver mask as she looks ahead again and sees me coming. Figments around us dance, murmur, stare at the stage, pay no attention to us as she flings her fan into my face, and I send a shockwave of my resonance into _her_.

She bursts into a shower of silver sparkles, vanishes, and that's one ethereal dealt with. Her mask falls to the floor, and a white card with a number on it. Nothing else left to mark where she was, and her allies--well, the one-armed man is bolting for an exit, and two other ethereals follow him. So that's that pack dealt with. Maybe they'll even be able to escape their master and go find new occupations that involve fewer tangles with demons.

"I hear one hundred and fifty-two points," the attendant says. "One hundred and fifty-two points."

There's blood trickling down my cheek from where the fan hit. Almost entirely cosmetic, though it smarts. I pick up the card from the ground, and watch the number there flicker, fade out, leaving me with blank paper. One hundred and sixty points even. Maybe she wouldn't have won anyway.

And maybe I saved her some doom by getting her out of here before the final call. Or maybe I made I kept her from some reward that would have come of watching the demons be caught in the trap. Since I'm unlikely to get a thank you or revenge from that direction either way, it doesn't much matter.

"One hundred and fifty-two points," the attendant says. "One hundred and fifty-two going once. One hundred and fifty-two going twice."

I turn back to the stage. The attendant smiles at me, and holds the artifact high over her head. "Sold for one hundred and fifty-two."

The figments flicker out of existence all around us, leaving only the attendants with their trays behind. The lights dim. And there's the Habbalite, standing on the other side of the stage, and me. The two of us are the only real people left in the room.

"The top bidder is unable to pay one hundred and fifty-two," the attendant says, and she's still smiling. "Penultimate bidder wins at one hundred and thirty-five points. The penultimate bidder is no longer present and unable to pay. The antepenultimate bidder wins at one hundred and thirty points. The antepenultimate bidder is unable to pay one hundred and thirty points." She lowers the artifact to hold in front of her, and smiles at me. Smiles at the Habbalite. "Let's cut to the chase, ladies and gentlemen. Step up to the front and we'll resolve the bids before the auction closes."

The Habbalite steps forward, and I'm not even a bidder. But the attendant looks to me directly, one hand stretched out to beckon me onward while the artifact rests casually in her other. And there are attendants behind me.

I can hear the porpoises giggling.

What the hell. Let's finish this in style. I step right up to the stage in the center, the dance floor creating itself before me to cover any gaps that would lie between me and where the attendant waits. Where the Habbalite's waiting, her gaze intent through the mask of pseudo-fire as she tries to figure out what I'm up to. What has Zhune been telling her, exactly? Some variation on the story I suggested, but it doesn't matter anymore. She knows this isn't how it was supposed to go down.

The dance floor disappears behind me, and around me. Until there's no place left to stand but almost shoulder to shoulder with the Habbalite of Fire. I know what that posture means. It means _I am afraid_ and _Someone will pay for this._ The latter is, admittedly, one I'm a lot more familiar with, but the first came up just often enough that I can still read it in how she stands, the way her hands wait loosely at her sides, the set of her shoulders and the set of her jaw.

I spent a great deal of time watching her. Once upon a time.

"You're not what we had in mind," the attendant says, "but you'll do. Come, now, don't look so worried. We play by the rules, here. We play fair. The auction has come to its end, and one of you has more points than the other. Congratulations, Althea." She holds out the artifact. "You've won."

The Habbalite is still as deep water, and does not reach out to take what she's been offered.

"What," says the attendant, the laughter of porpoises surrounding us, "did you think we didn't know? Do you believe you caught news of this event by accident, through your own sources? No more than the angels did. I had a special place ready for them. But oh, my dear sweet demons, I am not that picky. You will do."

"It's a lot of work to go to," I say to the avatar of the god, "for two of us."

The balconies are drawing nearer. The room is shrinking, a leisurely reduction of diameter. And down below us in the sphere, there's water seeping in.

"You," she says, turning her eyeless face towards me, "were not invited. You're unnecessary. You're not the right element to be anything more than entertainment. But I rather enjoyed watching you play."

"Does that mean I get to leave?" I spread my hands, and smile sweetly. "Or would you at least explain your clever plan to me, while I'm in the death trap?"

"Mm. Let me think about it." The avatar taps one finger against her pale gray lips, and the Habbalite is as silent as the grave beside me. "I'll say...no. I am not about to explain my clever plan. This is the Marches, Leo, and I've seen those movies too." She turns her face towards the Habbalite. "Oh! Did you not know? Isn't this a lovely surprise for you, to meet an old student again."

The Habbalite rips off her mask and looks down her nose at both of us. Even the avatar standing a meter higher than we are. "I have no time for games," she says, and Essence rattles around her.

"You can call all you want," the avatar says. "He won't hear you. I'm afraid it's just you, me, your old student, and, well... I wouldn't exactly call it a death trap. It's a little more complicated than that."

"Tell me the rules," I say.

The avatar tilts her head to one side, attention back on me. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because I can be entertaining," I say, and give her my Valefor smile. "The auction is over. Masks come off, fights to the true death begin, and maybe I can finally blast a hole in a wall. You don't even want me, do you? So give me a chance, and I'll owe you for it."

"Promise," says the avatar.

I raise a hand. "Promise."

"Very well." The avatar turns to the Habbalite, and tosses the artifact to her. Which the Habbie catches, not being entirely stupid in this case. Don't drop the powerful and valuable item on the floor. "No one begins until I say so. There's one exit left. One of you can leave through it, and then it closes. I know who I'd rather eat, but it's not often I can pit demons against each other in my world. Ready?"

I cannot move. The Habbalite shivers against the power that holds her still.

Yes, Althea. It's not so much fun when you're the one locked down and waiting for another person's amusement to start.

"Three," the avatar murmurs, and the world readjusts around us. Strips of dance floor spread themselves out in dozens of directions, a maze of paths merging and splitting and piercing each other, a few spinning about. I can't see the balconies anymore. "You might want to hurry, incidentally. The exit won't do you much good if you take too long to reach it."

I need to ask how long, but my tongue won't move in my mouth.

"Two," the avatar says, and water surges up from below. It laps at our ankles. "Really, it's a pity that you sent that angel outside. The things I could do with Waters... But you know what the poem said, or you couldn't have made it through the doors. Sometimes, another element will suffice."

She turns her face towards the Habbalite. "I would tell you to stop that, but it's more fun to watch you try. Patience, Althea. We're almost to the part where you get to show off. One."

The avatar of the whale god spreads her hands wide. "And...go."

Althea spins around to face me, and raises a hand. "Burn."


	33. In Which I Run

So there's this thing that Habbalah of Fire do. Where they make you think you're on fire. When I was very young this was part of what I learned in a class I attended every few days. We started with what Fire could do, branched out into what other important Words could do, that sort of thing. Practical instruction for people they figured were worth sending to the corporeal one day, and who ought to know the abilities of your average Seraph of War or what not. (We didn't spend much time on unimportant Words. I'm still not sure what Dreams does, though I expect Zhune would know.)

At the time, I couldn't figure out what the point of that was. It was so much easier to just set someone on fire directly. More controlled, too, instead of letting their mind make up the details. Althea believed strongly in self-control, and being deliberate in what you did. No accidents, no almosts. Figure out what you want and do _that_.

Right now she wants me to believe I'm on fire, and I have spent more Essence than I'd like in convincing myself that no, I am _not_ , and it's time to keep running.

I have to work out where the exit is before she does. I have to get there without her working it out from what I'm doing. I have to get out of here before she kills me. I have to get out of here before the room destroys everyone left inside. I would like to take that artifact with me, but I can only handle so many goals at once when she's setting the floor on fire behind me, and following through the flames.

The flames roar behind me, a wave of heat at my back, as if the floor's been coated in wax-soaked cloth. So much for the rule about not destroying the environment. But the exit isn't going to be _blast your way out_ , this god doesn't work like that, and I leap off this path of dancefloor to land on one two meters away. Which is not orienting me towards its own down like before, but actually sliding me to the side on its 30-degree angle. Gravity is no longer relative, but _down_.

The water below me is dark and deep, half the sphere full of it, and the shapes moving down there are not, I think, friendly.

She lands on the floor right behind me, as sure on her feet as I am. Bad sign. "All that time I spent teaching you manners," she says, "and this is how you repay me?"

Guilt tries to worm its way into my mind. I shove it back out like a god damn irritation, and bolt away, trying to watch how these paths turn. There's no pattern I can see, it's clumps and twists and parallel lines with no rhyme or reason, but there's a way to find the exit. That's how this god works. Rules and stories, and the resolution to a story is never about chance.

Give me two minutes to scan this room and think and I would have the exit. What I have is a Habbalite chasing me, and I can feel _this is all so pointless_ crashing over me like a tidal wave. I throw more Essence into ignoring that, and scramble up a series of narrow paths along their thin ends like I'm climbing a plywood ladder that's not very friendly to me.

Bursts into flames around me and that's not anyone faking it that's fire and it HURTS

like when I stuck that lit cigarette into my palm just to find out, and maybe Zhune had a point, but I let go and drop down into the water.

No points for that dive from the committee of judges. Hitting the water at that angle would probably hurt if I weren't so busy trying to remind myself that Discord doesn't work that way, it doesn't care about fire that's only in the mind, I don't think it did more than scare me (let's admit it, I'm terrified right now even without any Habbalite resonance eating my mind), but in any case the sense of _on fire_ goes away and I sink through the water like an awkwardly shape stone. I cannot parse the physics of this place, but the porpoises swim towards me, black eyes gleaming through the murky water.

"Hey," I say, water filling my lungs and causing no great discomfort for that, "help a guy out?"

"Sorry, chum," says one of the porpoises. "No can do."

"Besides," says another, as it sweeps around me in a lazy arc, "we don't like you that much."

I could try to claim some sort of "always been a friend to ethereals" badge of honor, but it's a hard sell after I knifed that Nightmares pet up above. "Worth asking," I say. There's a splash above me. "Think you could go harass _her_?"

"Wouldn't be fair," says a porpoise. "But whatever happens, we'll have fun."

"You do that," I say, and kick down through the water.

There are paths below, twisting around each other, hazards that loom up suddenly in front of my face or catch at my limbs. This is not my natural environment, I'm not sure I've ever had to swim on the corporeal before, but since I can't _drown_ (thank you for that small favor, you mad and vicious god of the whales, Kobal would love your sense of humor), I can...flail, more or less, towards where I want to go.

Under the platform. A twist around, a quick plunge down when I catch a sight of a pale shape drawing too close, and then back up. I haul myself up onto the edge of the stage. The water's lapping around the edges of that now, which means it's gained a meter since we started. When the room's full--I think that's our time limit.

My time limit.

The avatar crouches down in front of me while I cough out water--it's not so happy about letting me breathe it once I'm in the air, good to _know_ that, thanks for the warning--and adjusts the sunglasses I'm wearing. "I should have laid side bets," she says, and stands up again. "However, I thought I'd be a lot more likely to get the demons and angels clawing each other's eyes out over the artifact, not this. Well, you know how it goes. Live and learn."

"You're a real bastard," I say, and scan the paths above me. Can't tell yet if they're the distractions or the clues. "FYI."

"I am a god. After what Heaven did to the Marches, what Hell did to the remains, what the humans did to my worshippers... Leo, here's a good lesson to remember in life. However much of it you have left. Only cream and bastards rise."

"I know that song," I say, and Althea comes clawing out of the water. I haven't figured this out yet. No matter. I pick a pathway that _isn't_ burning, and run for it.

She throws some emotion at me, and it comes so damn close to slipping into my mind. She's too _good_ at this, and that was a rattle of Essence from her this time, I'm spending more to push it out, I don't know how much she started with or how much she spent trying to invoke Belial or how many more times I can _do_ this, and I'm practiced at dealing with this Habbie junk in my brain that's mostly practice with. Recovery. Not with the not feeling it. You can't learn to _not_ feel it, only to do damage control.

Can't control the damage if you're dead.

I duck under a path that's a little below head height for me, uncomfortably so for Althea. She's not setting things on fire anymore, that takes Essence (I hope she's out) but she can keep trying to hit me in the emotions indefinitely. I might get one shot at resonating her in return, in the world of the mind it might _work_ , but if I kick her back to her Heart, I'm the last one standing in here. Which is not a good place to be. And she'd take the artifact with her, that's not revenge, that's getting burned by my own plan.

If I were still serving Fire, I'd probably be dissonant already in here. If I'd kept the angels around--but I needed them out.

Can't remember why. But I'm sure it was a good reason. No time to think about that. I have time for two things, running and figuring out where the exit is. Right now the first half of that is going better.

I climb up a series of paths, roll over the side of one to drop into a basket-like weave of several others, and don't dare look back to see how close Althea is. (Anywhere in this room is _too close_.) From the smell of smoke rising all around me, the fire's crawling along the paths faster than the water can douse it. Maybe I get to die in a fire, or Althea gets to shred me while I think the fire's killing me, before I can drown.

Wait wait _wait_ , and I don't have time to wait, I have to keep climbing up, Habbalite on my heels--she's not as fast as I am, but she's following me, so she doesn't have to slow down any to consider where she's moving next, it's unfair but she knows I'm smarter than her and she knows I'll find the exit--but that's the thing, I know how to find the exit. Or how to find the clues for it.

_Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice._ That's half of it. _Going down._ That's the other half. Those were the way in, so they'll tell me the way out. But that gives me two options, fire or ice at the top or the bottom of this sphere--convenient that gravity has given me some sense of up and down again, inconvenient that it's making the climbing damn hard--and if the exit's marked by fire, I am so fucked.

But I don't think it will be, because this god is no fan of fire--or of Fire--and for the exit to be fair, it has to be marked before anyone started setting things alight.

Flip of the coin says: ice. At the top. Ice floats, whales surface for breath, and I bet I won't be able to see where the cold's hanging out until the water's right at the top and about to trap both of us together, and it's harder to go up than down, so, yeah, that sounds exactly right for where this god would put the exit.

I can't believe I'm going to leave this place _owing_ her.

I can almost believe I'll still make it out of this alive. Always have before. For various values of "alive."

A section of twisted flooring cracks under my hand when I grab it, pieces falling away and I'm more flailing than jumping to get onto another twist of floor, skewed an imperfect perpendicular that gives me a wobbly edge to stand on, because I'm moving too fast to stop and _think_ about where my hands are going. Where my feet are going. There's a world of twisted wooden pathways around me and above me, water and smoke rising from below me, and when I look down I meet her eyes and--

\--no I will not accept that emotion, whichever one it was, but my hands are shaking and that was the last of my Essence. I haul myself up and over another path before I can fall off this one. It'd be nice to fake her out about where the exit is. Don't think I have the time. The water's more than halfway up, and rising faster as each of the circles it fills in this infinite series of two-dimensional planes (a flashback to calculus classes, at a time like this?) become smaller.

I am faster than her, I am smaller than her (which helps in twisting between these paths, they're not even paths anymore but strips of curving wood, a regular warren like I have been thrown in the briar patch without the appropriate training, and if I were any sort of fucking marine biologist maybe I could tell if that was like coral or seaweed or just what's in this god's mind, because I no longer think the god of the whales is crazy, merely very angry, and she's probably got reason for it), and I am nearly at the top when she hits me.

There is always a moment, a moment with no true duration of time, but it's there, between the attack of the resonance where you can say, hey, that's someone fucking with my brain, when you can push it away, and when it sets in.

I can feel the regret hitting me. I can't push it away.

Whatever I was holding slips out of my hands. Cannot bring myself to care, because I am sorry for everything. For every stupid mistake I've ever made, and there are a lot of them. I hit something hard, cracking against my shoulder and skull, and I cannot bring myself to care because the litany of my mistakes is so loud in my head I can't hear anything but that and the song of whales.

I'm sorry that I ever tried to play against Judgment. That I let Regan talk me into helping her. That I kept that kid. That I broke my Heart. That I went back for Katherine, that I ran to the Host to save her, that I went back and hurt the first person I ever loved just to please them. I am sorry that I worked for War, that I stopped working for them, that I ever made friends with Nik and that I sent her away. I am sorry that I ran to the Marches. I'm sorry that I came back. I am sorry that I joined up with Theft, and that I betrayed my partner and my Prince. That I went after my partner in Shal-Mari, that I called Penny and Iris and tried to ask them for help, even when I didn't know what kind of help I needed.

I am a sorry wreck and I keep doing the stupidest things and I can't stop crying, here on this stretch of path, and the water's coming and I will die here and it's right and proper because look at what I've done. Running towards death over and over again for no good reason, when I should've just done what I was told and let the people who knew better use me.

Althea's hand slides through my hair, and she yanks my head up to face her. "Just look at you, sweetheart," she says. "It's like old times all over again."

I would like to hate her, but I can't stop crying. There's no room in my head for anything but _I am so sorry_ , and knowing it isn't real doesn't change that it's true.

She pulls the knife from my belt. Shoves it down through my right hand into the path below us. Not through my mind, through my _soul_ , and of course that's where she'd start the hurting. (I am sorry I ever came here. I am sorry I dragged Zhune along. I am sorry that I liked the con and I'm sorry that I lied, though I'm not sure which lies I feel worst about. Let's call it all of them. That's simple.) Hurts like it would on the corporeal. Hurts like it would back in Hell. That's fair.

"Do you know the way out?" she asks, hand tightening in my hair. Could not answer her through the crying even if I wanted to. "Speak up, darling. All you have to do is tell me where the exit is, and I'll leave you alone. You can curl up here and think about all you've done wrong."

I am sorry for leaving Penny. I am sorry for asking him for help, ever and any time. I am sorry for leaving Katherine, time and again, like it's some sort of punishment to find someone here with her name, and I'm sorry I didn't get her away from Zhune faster. I never should have taken her. I never should have kept her. I never should have trusted the angels to keep her safe.

Althea pulls the knife out of my right hand, and repeats the procedure on the left one. I think that if she does that again, I will lose a Force, and I cannot care because I deserve this.

"I am asking you a question," she says, and I know that tone in her voice. The one that says I gave the _wrong answer_ and this is about to become so much worse. "Time's wasting. Tell me where you were going."

The water washes the blood off my hands as it rises around me. It'll take us both down, and that's only fair. I deserve anything that happens to me, and I am so sorry for what I did, but I will not help her because she deserves this end too.

And there is a voice in my head that says, _Hey, Leo. It's Ash. Good luck with the job. I'm sure you'll do fine._

And one Essence.

I deserve whatever happens to me but other people are counting on me and I cannot fucking apologize to them unless I reach them first.

Althea draws the knife out of my hand. I'm elbow-deep in water, and she says, "Last chance, sweetheart."

I sing myself invisible. I let her keep the knife she's holding, because that was only mine and all the presents I get are stolen away eventually, but I take the artifact from her other hand because I am Theft and she won it fairly and someone else wants this and I need to go apologize.

I destroy the floor under her feet. And I go climbing.

The water's catching up. I'm swimming, flailing, but I'm heading up, and she cannot find me, and I do not care what she's saying, because I am too sorry for what I've done, but I'm never sorry for what I've done to _her_.

There is a hand's width of air left at the top of the sphere when I find the intersection of paths, one splitting its way through the other, lined in black ice.


	34. An Interlude, In Which A Debate Is Interrupted

Vaina did not know how to help, or who to help, exactly. The Cherub of Wind stand before the wall of water, and would no longer respond to anything said to him. The Impudite of Fire stood a few paces away, watching that Cherub, hands clasped behind her back, and he did not know what she would do if he tried to offer...comfort? Direction? He had too little information, and the waves of disturbance sweeping out of the Domain before them were growing louder. Essence use, time and again, and none of them knew how many people might still be inside, who might against whom.

"I should send help," he said quietly.

"It's no easy journey back to the Marches," Catherine said, "and we need what Essence we have left, which is not _much_ anymore. She may well be doing fine in there, and all that noise could come from about anything. Including some clever Windy plan that leaves us without results, because if she's acting under a Geas--"

"She's locked in there with a Habbalite of Fire," Vaina said. "I suspect she is not...fine."

"A Captain of the Eternal Fire," said the Impudite. She did not look at either of them as she said it, staring at the silent, still Cherub and the wall of water. "She's not fine."

"I should--"

"You _shouldn't_ ," Catherine said. "We have a job to do, and she's already pushed us all away so that she can go after the artifact herself. That Geas might be telling her to do nearly anything."

"And do you want to take a chance on being wrong?" Vaina asked.

There was a sound that was not disturbance, a cracking roar from the water, and they all turned to look. The dark space inside that was the sphere was shrinking, crumpling in on itself.

Leah fell out of the wall of water.

And her Cherub caught her.


	35. In Which I Explain Matters To Interested Parties

I can't stop crying. I know this one. It'll wear off soon.

Zhune's crouched on the ground beside me, his arms around me, and how fucked up is it that even through this list of regrets overwhelming me, even as I can't stop choking out "I'm sorry" at him every time I can get it through the sobs, even _now_ in this I think this the most I've ever felt like he loves me.

But he's a Djinn and I should know better.

And I am so sorry that I betrayed him.

But it's so nice to have him here for me. Right now. However much it's a lie.

Another pair of shoes appears on the ground in front of my face, where I can still see past the side of Zhune's arm, and then there's Luna crouching down to look at me. Maskless, but not exactly hard to recognize.

"This one will be over soon," she says. "The ones that hit the deepest last the shortest amount of time."

"I know," I say, because I am so tired of saying _I'm sorry_ when I don't dare explain what I'm sorry for.

Zhune makes a noise that is a little bit like a growl, and she backs off. Smart kid. She'll do fine.

There's an artifact tucked inside my shirt, and the angels haven't seen it yet, and I...don't quite feel like I need to apologize for that. Not anymore. This does wear off. The crying's trailing off, just wheezy sobs coughing up from my chest like I'm listening to a stranger. Until even those stop, and I can breathe, think. Plan.

When I stand up, he'll let go.

I give myself a minute, a full cheating _Let's pretend I'm still sad_ minute that I do not deserve, before I pull away and stand up and let my partner go back to watching my back like it's some sort of job and nothing personal between us. Of course it's personal. Everything's personal, no matter what people say.

So let me do inventory. I have one ancient and powerful artifact tucked down my shirt. No more shiny unbreakable knife, but shoes that help me run away. Two nice and helpful angels staring at me dubiously, like they're not sure if I need hugs and cookies or a rather pointed interrogation about what the hell I was doing in there. One Djinn of Theft, my partner, a relentless asshole and bound to hurt me in creative new ways soon, but willing to watch my back and give me assistance in whatever comes next, though I may pay for it later. One Impudite of Fire with an unusual set of characteristics for that Band and Word combination, but Althea would probably have trained that out of her within the year.

And now she won't get the chance. The Geas that was driving me towards someone else's revenge is _gone_ , I can tell that much. Which means whatever happened to the Habbalite, it's enough to satisfy that Lilim's idea of proper revenge for...well, for having me made. And I suspect that Lilim would have been equally pleased, or more so, if I'd been caught when that room went crunch.

"What happened?" Catherine asks, and oh, the lies I could tell. I don't have Habbalite fuzz all over my brain. The Mercurian is looking at me critically, but she's not _hostile_ , just upset at being thrown out of the loop, and I could still spin this so that we all walk away in opposite directions and they never know what happened.

Could. Important choice, there. Because this is what you might call a hypothetical statement phrased so as to indicate it's not expected to happen. And Zhune is not going to like this, but I want to end this whole con, I want to get back _home_ , wherever that is, and some things are owed. Even if there's no Geas enforcing the matter.

(I wonder how long I can avoid telling Zhune about the Geas the god laid on me as I left. Maybe forever. What does the god of whales want from a Calabite of Theft, anyway?)

"Half a sec," I tell her, and track down Luna, who's unmasked and trying to stand up straight in the midst of some serious terror. Poor kid. I put my hands on her shoulders, and wait for her to look at me. "You doing okay?"

"I don't know," she says, and swallows nervously, because that's not an answer we would ever give Althea. Yes or no, and how can you not _know_ , Leo.

But I am not my first supervisor, and I like the honesty.

"That's fine," I say. "It's a lot to take in at once. So I need to ask you one more thing before we wrap everything up here. Where do you want to go?" She tenses under my hands, because oh, of course, every question is a _trap_ , and so I lower my voice. "I can't promise to get you there. Can't and won't. But I want to know, because what you want--might change some things. Anywhere in particular, or particularly not? Do you care?"

"Anywhere," she says, "that isn't Fire. And where I'm not working for a Habbalite. Anywhere else at all."

"Okay. I can work with that."

I turn around, and give everyone my best Valefor smile.

"Time to wrap," I say. "Let me do introductions fast, because we all have places to go and things to do and some very impatient people to meet." I flip a hand towards Luna, who stands beside me. "Luna, Impudite of Fire. She wants to get the fuck out of here." I point to each of the angels in turn. "Vaina, Cherub of Waters. Maybe in service to Trade, I don't remember exactly. Catherine, Mercurian of Trade. And, right, here's the punchline."

Zhune eyes me sidelong, but I am on a _roll_ , and he knows full well it's too late to argue.

I spread my arms wide. "Theft. All along."

The angels stare at me. Absolutely frozen. That won't last.

I let my arms drop back to my sides. "This is why I don't work for Dark Humor. No one ever laughs at my jokes. So, cards on the table, folks. We don't want to fight you, and you don't want to fight us. That just ends in Force loss and tears, and believe me, I have had _enough_ of tears for the day."

Zhune shifts on his feet, fingertips laid across the handle of that jagged sword, and I know what that means. That means nothing other than _I want to fight,_ and under some circumstances, I'd indulge him. But I'm so damn soul-tattered I can't afford to have an angry Cherub in my face, or even an irate Mercurian, and.

I owe them. I didn't make any promises. But still. Like the Geas that isn't on Luna, the debt is still there.

"Lilim," Catherine says softly.

"Oh, go ask Penny. He can explain it for you. Say hi while you're there, and tell him that Leah sends her regards." I reach into my shirt, and pull out the artifact, and watch Vaina tense up even more. He will not attack me yet, but oh, it's coming, if I don't play this right. So I'm going to play it true and straight and honest, and see what they do. Because I don't rightly know.

"That," the Cherub says softly, "is rightfully ours."

"No. It's not. It's rightfully mine. I stole it fair and square from the winner of the auction. But like I said," and I think my smile's sliding away from sharp charm into something else that I can't quite identify, "we don't want to fight you. So, you're doing all this Trade sort of thing. I'm going to offer you a deal."

Catherine barks out an unhappy laugh. "You think we'll deal with you? Now? With a _Lilim_?"

There may be some downsides to playing this role, and it'd be more honest to just admit what I am, but somehow it feels right. To go out on a lot of truth and a fair deal that end up looking like lies and a trick. "I guess that's up to you," I say, and slide a foot in front of Zhune's when he's about to step forward. I'd better hurry this up, or he's going to be tangling with that Cherub, and I _cannot_ take on any real fight in this state. "So here's the deal. I've got this Geas cleared, but I still need to have something to offer my Boss to make my apologies for this unauthorized side trip and playing with angels. What I've got on hand are two things. First! One Impudite of Fire, who'll do fine in Theft. Or nearly anywhere else. She's smart, she's careful, and she's got more guts than I did at her age." That gets me a startled glance from Luna, which is...I don't know, it doesn't matter what she thinks about me. "Second! One artifact said to contain a Force each of Belial and Oannes."

"And, what," Catherine says, hands curling into fists, "you want us to pay you for this?"

"No," I say wearily. I was on a roll, but now I'm just tired, tired of this whole thing and tired of trying to help people who never appreciate what I'm doing for them. "Pick one. We both walk away with something to show for our time here, and we all go home, and we don't lose Forces or end up with two Superiors staring each other down in the middle of the Marches, because even if they'd come I doubt either of them would be real happy about the situation." 

The angels stare at me. Like this is, what, a trick question? Two options, folks. Not that hard to work out. 

"I don't trust you," Catherine says.

"Good call. But I swear by my nature that I won't lay Geas or hook on you for anything happening here now. And! Because you're nice folks and played straight with me, I'm letting you take your first pick. But make it _snappy_ , because it has been a long day and if you don't decide, I will."

There is an obvious choice. Even Zhune is looking at me as if I've gone mad, because that is no choice at all, and everyone here knows it. They are all looking at me as if I'm being unreasonable, except for Luna, who only looks very thoughtful indeed. She is a smart kid.

Vaina strides forward, and offers Luna a hand.

"But we--"

"No," Vaina says, before the Mercurian can finish her sentence. "People are more important than things. Heaven has survived this long without that artifact, and it can survive longer." He holds the hand out to Luna, looking directly at her, not at all to me, and says to her, "We won't drag you away. But if you want to be our price in this bargain, we will save you from Hell. And I will let no harm come to you."

She takes his hand.

And he looks to me, and says, as if this is normal, as if we are not all enemies here, "My promise remains, Leah."

I turn and walk away. 

Zhune cannot take the two of them, the _three_ of them, without me. Whatever he has against that Cherub, he's just going to have to deal.

And after a few minutes he catches up with me.

By the time I look back over my shoulder, they've disappeared. The Marches are like that. I'm not even sure where I'm going, except for _away_.

Where we're going. Of course it's Zhune and me, walking away at the end. With the loot and no one tagging along. That's how it always goes.


	36. In Which I Make Apologies

We've found a stretch of cracked stone that looks like it must've held a portion of a Domain, once upon a time. It's as good a place as any to stop and argue.

"You had no reason to do that," Zhune says, and he sounds very calm and I know he is so amazingly angry right now. So angry that if he sounded anything less than perfectly calm, he would not be able to stop himself from doing something stupid as it all came out at once. "You had the con in hand. Even with the idiot last-minute twist you pulled, we were in character and we had everything under control."

"Yeah," I say, and turn around in a slow circle. "I really could've. Sorry about that." Nothing but gray sands and mist, as far as I can see. I am well and truly lost. "How long do you think we can be off the grid before the Boss gets annoyed about it?"

"And you shouldn't have sent me outside. You nearly got yourself _killed_ alone in there."

"You're right," I say. "I should've figured out how to send Luna out with the angels, or even alone. It would've been good to have your help. Except I'm not sure the god would've let any of us leave if we were standing in there with Althea when the auction closed. But, seriously, Zhune. How long do you think? Because on the one hand we've been missing for about two weeks, but on the other hand he doesn't exactly check up on us regularly anyway."

Zhune grabs my arm. "Are you even listening to me? Why did you tell them? Why run that last trade?"

I stop examining the frankly rather dull surroundings, and meet his gaze. (Through my sunglasses, which have lasted all the way out here, and I think that's some sort of final joke from the god of whales.) "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," he says tightly. "Explain to me, Leo. What you were doing."

"You told me so damn much about what the angels are like." I shrug, tugging against his grasp. "Wanted to find out if you were right. I was actually surprised, you know. Thought they'd take the artifact."

He's quiet for a long moment. "And that we'd, what, bring an Impudite of Fire back to the Boss? When there was a Cherub of Waters right _there_?"

"I wasn't kidding," I say, "about not wanting to fight. Got jumped in the mind and in the soul, in there. I am tired and I lost that knife and I am _hurt_ , Zhune. If you tried to run off with that damn Cherub, I'd be looking at Force loss in the scuffle, or waking up back at my Heart with Discord, and either way I don't think that's the kind of apology Valefor wants from us, and will you just _tell_ me how much longer we have before that apology needs to be a really serious one?"

Zhune pinches the bridge of his nose, and then stares up at the sky for a moment. There's nothing interesting to see up there but more fog. I've checked.

"It depends," he says at last, "on whether or not he had a job for us while we were gone."

"So...probably not too serious."

"Probably."

"Oh. Good."

I stuff my hands in my pockets. Zhune's been carrying the artifact, like I might trade that away if he didn't keep it himself, but that's fine. I got what I came for already. Picked up just as much debt in the process, but I still have my partner, so what of it? I can keep on paying off that debt over and over again for years, and it'll be okay if he's around. Even if he does try to fuck with my head any time I make him angry. (Succeeds, too. Zhune is not one for half measures.)

"You're thinking of walking back," he says. "Aren't you."

"We could."

"When you are, as you just pointed out, injured in every way you could be attacked in this place, and with neither of us having any way to heal you."

"If I'd been a little more clever," I say, "I would've asked Vaina for healing before the big reveal. Sorry about that. I was feeling a little rushed at the time."

"What was the rush?"

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep." I shrug. "And miles to go before I sleep."

"That," Zhune says, "is not an answer. That is fucking poetry, and you don't even have the excuse of being drunk."

"I wanted to get the kid out." Which is, I don't know, half the truth or all of it or none of it, I can't even tell anymore. "Call it some dreadful failing in me as a demon, but there were some inconvenient empathy feelings going through my head at the time. I've been where she was, and I wanted to give her some sort of choice on where to go next. But if I'd stopped and thought about it for a while longer, I would've realized what a terrible idea it was, so I had to get it done before common sense caught up with me."

Zhune snorts. "And do you think she's really redemption bait? You barely met her."

"I don't know," I say. Which is true, right there. Sometimes people ask you a question where they want a yes or a no, and the truth is neither. Unknown. "But I wanted to give her a chance. You know, when I ran Renegade, and ended up talking to Trade and Flowers and Stone in quick succession, even when that asshole Mercurian of War jumped me, they kept trying to give me that choice. Come and stay with us, we have sing-alongs and group hugs and we will not murder you here and now if you decide to sign up with the forces of Heaven."

Zhune stares at me, unreadable. Which I don't like. He's easier to deal with when I know what he's thinking.

"My point," I say, "is that the offer has been made in my direction, rather more than once, with varying degrees of enticement attached, and I said no. Every time. Why you throw a fit over me talking to Penny once in a while, I don't know. He promised he wouldn't drag me away, and he's already _asked_ me to leave with him, so why in the world do you act like this is a problem? I made a fucking choice. And I thought, hey, why not give the kid a chance to say yes or no herself. It's only fair."

"And if they'd picked the artifact," Zhune says, "like anyone who wasn't a sentimental fool would have, what then?"

"Then it would be harder to apologize to the Boss," I say.

Zhune just sighs.

#

I was all for walking home, and Zhune threatened to slap me around himself and eat dissonance just to get me dropped back to my Heart and not at risk for soul loss from some predator of the Marches, and frankly, that whole conversation was boring and not worth thinking about at length. But it leaves us standing here in some sort of remains of a courtyard, ready to call in the Boss and apologize. With the hope that an apology will get us a way out of here.

I call up buildings around me, leaving it to Zhune to bring the mobile figments to life. He's got no head for architecture, anyway, except when it comes to fast exits and weak spots in the security. That Djinn could not identify a load-bearing beam and how best to drop a ceiling on someone to save his life, which is why I've had to do exactly that to save his a handful of times.

My model's Florence, a dreamy rendition of buildings I've studied and whatever seems thematic to me. Cathedrals and banks and a few facades admittedly swiped from Venice instead line the plaza, and in the center there's a fountain with an enormous statue. Stone crawls into existence around me, stretches up on every side. I turn the saints in their niches into robed Balseraphs, turn the putti into little winged Shedim, and spell out Factions slogans from Stygia over the entrances to each building in Helltongue. The central fountain has an enormous marble Impudite who winks at us as she pours coins from a jar, and here in the Marches the fountain can be made of coins, gold and silver (and worthless shiny pennies) tumbling endlessly from the pot into the pool below.

The statue looks odd like Luna, but I don't think anyone else is going to notice. And only a little like her. I haven't seen her smile.

When I'm done building the plaza, I focus down on the ground and help Zhune with the inhabitants. Muggers in the dark shadows and fraudulent bankers in the sunlight, pickpockets working the crowds around performing musicians, con artists and adulterers and every type of human theft. Or destruction. They can destroy fortunes and trust and vows and houses and heirlooms and innocence, without any damn help from us. Of course Theft would be a Calabite; stealing's just destruction that sometimes does another person a little good along the way.

"We could walk," I tell Zhune. He's the one with all the Essence, and he's the one who gets to do all the talking. I am still of the opinion that it's never a good idea to speak with your Prince unless he's called you up first, and even then it's simply the least horrible of the options left to you.

Zhune sends one last imaginary pickpocket scurrying away into the crowd, and looks down at me. "You could let me do all the talking."

"That's also a good plan."

"Yes," he says, "I know. I can tell because it doesn't suggest that we split up, set a building on fire, or break our own con at the last minute for the sake of making a dramatic gesture."

"I still don't know what you had against that Cherub," I say, and shut up, because Zhune's begun the invocation.

That's the last of our Essence--his, really, since we haven't hit sunset in Marches time since I crawled out of that Domain--and if the Boss can't hear it, or doesn't want to bother answering, we are in more trouble.

"Now this," says the Boss, an arm slung casually around each of our necks, "is a surprise. Because I think I would've remembered if I said anything about a trip to the Marches. Someone want to explain what happened here, that you're calling for a ride?"

"She got Geased into it," Zhune says, which is a far more succinct explanation than I would've attempted. "Some deal with Freedom. I came along to get her back out."

"And then," says our Prince, "you decided this should be my problem. Somehow." He steps past us, his hand slipping across my neck and I cannot stop being aware of how easily he could pull me apart. "Cute neighborhood, though. Maybe I'll keep it." Two thugs drag a child past him, a hand over the kid's mouth, but it's all imaginary. Steal your life and steal your soul and steal your loyalty, it's all part of _Theft_. What can't he take?

Valefor steps up onto the edge of the fountain, and the coins falling there corrode as he approaches, rust and tarnish creeping in, grime spreading across the gold. He turns around, and I am terrified of his smile.

"Come on, puppy," he says. "I'm waiting. What makes this worth my time?"

_Maybe you could be his dog,_ my partner said, and when Zhune steps forward to apologize to the one who could destroy us at any time, he is walking towards his master in a way I can't even understand. Oh, but he would _know_ what it's like to be ripped through a change into something completely different from what he was before, and I don't know if that's how Heaven works, but I am suddenly keenly aware of what my Prince can do when he wants to bother with the effort.

I'm glad that we didn't bring Luna here.

"We picked this up along the way," Zhune says, and holds out the artifact. "Ran a con on a pair of angels that were getting in the way, and sent them home with nothing worth anything."

Valefor takes that circle of clay in one hand, and then he laughs. A sound I've never heard before, not quite like that, and then he looks at me and beckons. Which means I walk right up to him and he says, "Leo, relax. This is a good haul. This makes up for a lot."

He ruffles my hair, and this is not the fuzz of a Habbalite saying _love me_ , this is something else entirely, because I am not afraid of him, even though I should be. I cannot imagine being afraid of someone I trust so completely.

"Since you like that look so much," he says to me, "you can have it back." Which isn't exactly the present I would've asked for, if I were asking for any in the first place, but what could it hurt to have that lost vessel recreated and reattached? It'll make Zhune happy. My partner is easier to deal with when he's happy, and I've been fucking up a lot lately.

"Is it really Waters?" Zhune asks. Maybe it's not unreasonable to ask questions, or speak out of turn. The Boss is nothing like Belial, nothing like Baal, and he's not going to hurt us unless we've done something to deserve it.

I've done something to deserve it, and I cannot ever tell him, because I couldn't bear to disappoint him that way. It'd be like. I don't know. Breaking a promise to Penny. Insult to injury.

"Waters and Fire, in the flesh. So to speak." Valefor tosses the disc in the air, and catches it. "Anything else up your sleeve, while you're showing off? Something from Oceans, maybe. Oblivion. Something rare."

"There was an Impudite," I say, and can't help but feel a little awkward about this explanation when he looks at me. "This little Impudite of Fire that I pulled out of that mess, and I meant to bring her to you, but she went with the angels instead. I didn't think we could take them."

"Didn't need one of those anyway," Valefor says. The disc has vanished when I wasn't looking. He's good at that trick, the way Belial was good at setting things on fire. "Don't worry about it, kid. You made the right call, especially with how shredded you're looking. The present you brought is worth a few dozen Takers. In fact?" He holds out a hand to me, and when I take it, he pulls me up beside him on the edge of the fountain. "I'm giving you each a gift. So you'll remember what I want out of you. What you should steal, and how you should behave around your boss. Got it?"

I nod, and I can't help but wonder what's wrong with this picture, because it feels all too easy, and it feels entirely right, and nothing ever feels this _right_. Except that he's smiling at me like I've done well, and that's the only thing I could ever want.

My Prince kisses me, a sharp and sudden move, and all the frayed fabric of my mind and soul feel whole again, and then my soul is--I don't--it's sharp as the kiss and wrapping around me, like when he pulled my Discord out to change it but all in the other direction. A cold wire piercing its way down through my soul to hook in and make itself _me_.

He lets me go with that, and with the grin that I try to imitate when I want people to worry about me the way I worry about him. (Except I'm not worried. There is something wrong and I don't know what it is.) "The next time someone jumps you," he says, "you make them _pay_ ," and on that note he turns to Zhune. "Have any requests? Or should I come up with something exciting?"

"A better leash," Zhune says, and that...hurts.

"Thought you'd never ask," says the Boss. So maybe I misunderstood, or maybe I just need people with more experience to keep an eye on what I'm doing. He pulls Zhune in for a kiss, and I wonder if it was so sharp as the one he gave me.

It is not anything like a Habbalite making me love him, because I know what that feels like. It's not love at all. Only... I don't know, trust and admiration and belonging, like I'm finally a part of Theft like I keep telling myself I am. Like I should be.

"And now," Valefor says, "both of you have spent enough time jaunting through the Marches, which isn't usually full of toys anywhere near this interesting. Get back to work where I put you."

We are standing in the snow, Zhune and I, on a street that I can place as soon as my mind catches up with the fact that we're on the corporeal. Zhune back in his newest vessel, and me in mine, dressed like my image was in the Marches. All the talismans I had on me are gone, and I'm barefoot in the snow. Which is fucking cold.

But I still have a pair of sunglasses on. Not sure if that's the god's joke or the Prince's.

Zhune glances down at my feet, and says, "Let's get that fixed." Which starts by him walking up the steps to the door and banging on it. Layla will hear us, or one of her people will. Then maybe we can get in out of the cold, and I can figure out how to feel about my Prince wrapping another Force into me. That has to mean something good.

If I can just figure out what's wrong, here. Besides the part where I'm barefoot in the snow, there's more snow falling all around us in this eerie early morning light, and I am _cold_.


	37. An Epilogue, In Which Nothing Of Importance Happens

Zhune tracked down his partner in the room Layla had given them. Leo was curled up in an armchair, feet tucked under her and a blanket over her lap, a cold beer on the end table and a paperback in her lap.

But she wasn't reading. She was staring at a window with a curtain draw across it, and the pair of shades she'd somehow brought back from the Marches were holding her place in the book.

Zhune folded his arms over the back of the chair, and looked down at her. And when she refused to look up or acknowledge his presence, he went ahead and spoke first. "It wore off?"

"Yes," she said. "It wore off."

"And you wish it hadn't."

That got a direct glare out of her, which was good. Leo needed some shoving at times. Too prone to sulking and brooding and then _scheming_ when not distracted, and all that twisty planning was best suited for work, not personal matters. "Why would I want that?"

"Because when the Boss decides to Charm you, then you're ready to be the best Magpie this ball of dirt has ever seen."

"I could be," Leo said. "If I wanted to. Which I don't, because it's too much fucking work and risk." She bent her head over the book again. "Are we leaving soon, or did you want to go jump the new Knight again?"

Zhune wondered what she would say, if he suggested she join in. And how the answer might change if he deployed the Song his Prince had set into his mind.

He decided he did not want to find out quite yet. Best to keep new methods of control in reserve for the next time his partner ran too far in the wrong direction. There was nothing wrong with a little eccentricity, in a Magpie. It was practically expected. So long as she learned to contain her hobbies better, and to tell him everything before she changed the plan, there might be no need at all to force the issue.

"Soon," he said. "I was thinking of Chicago--"

"New York."

He drummed his fingers across the back of the chair, and looked down at her head, the back of her neck, as she bent over the book she probably wasn't even reading. "State?"

"City. I have an errand to run."

"If this is another Geas--"

"No," she said, and flipped a page, sliding the sunglasses out of her way onto her lap. "Just a favor for a friend. We're always running off to do favors for your friends, Zhune. I get to do one for mine, too."


	38. An Epilogue, In Which People Draw Conclusions Based On Available Evidence

Luna wrapped her arms around herself, and watched the Cherub. Because if she did not watch the Cherub, she would start watching the Malakim who stood at the foot of the tower rising out of the gray sands, and that, oh, that was not a good idea. She had run screaming dozens of times from any number of things, when resonated into doing so. Fleeing without any Habbalite's touch to blame it on would be embarrassing.

Besides, she liked looking at him. He did not give her those sidelong glances the Mercurian did, when she thought Luna didn't notice. The ones that said _I don't think you're good enough_ and _I don't like what you are_ and _We got the worse end of that deal._ Which didn't matter, because as some of the arguments on the walk back had established, the Mercurian was in charge, but not _that_ in charge of what the Cherub did.

Vaina had said that he would let no harm come to her.

She mostly believed him.

The Malakim she was carefully not looking at glanced into the gate between them, and the Cherub stepped forward as if he were expecting someone, as if this were a good thing. And so Luna took a few more steps to keep close to his back. Just in case. She was not sure how a Cherub's protection worked, if it had a range limit or could be broken by orders from the right person.

Most anything in Hell could be broken by orders from the right person.

But in this case what he was doing was stepping forward to greet what was not a Balseraph, what must be an actual Seraph, a golden serpent with six amber eyes--which could still almost be a Balseraph, except for its leather-brown wings not being leather at all, but feathers over feathers, like she had never seen before.

"The message you sent," said the Seraph, "was confusing, which I find a rare trait in any message written in angelic." It swung its head about to observe her, and Luna wondered. If it could tell. What she was, under the image she wore, and could Seraphim see right through those things? She didn't know enough, she didn't know anything at _all_.

Vaina had said that he would let no harm come to her.

"Some Lilim of Theft," said the Mercurian, sounding all manner of annoyed, as she had on the entire walk, "sends her regards. She mentioned you by name."

The Seraph blinked, a ripple from top to bottom across its six eyes. "No," it said, and swept in nearer, nearer than she was comfortable with, to look down over her and the Cherub and the Mercurian all at once. Maybe it really could see that deeply. "Not a Lilim. Calabite."

"But she said--" And the Mercurian stopped, and blinked. "No. She never said. She implied. But with the mask--I thought that--"

The Seraph coiled down lower, until its head was level with Luna's. She stood up as straight as she could, and tried not to shake, her hands clasped behind her back. Because it did look at her as if it could see right through her.

"My name is Penny," it said. "I am a Seraph of Trade. Who are you?"

"Luna," she said. "I'm an Impudite. Of Fire. But I don't want to belong to Fire anymore, and she promised, she said she would get me _out_ if I wanted."

"Who did?" asked the Seraph.

"Leah. The Lilim--I thought she was a Lilim of Theft. She said that she knew what I needed, and she knew what it was like to work for Althea, I know she _used_ to even if she didn't say it, and then..." But there were no good words, she did not have an answer, and maybe these people would not hurt her for answering wrong. "I don't know," Luna said. "She wasn't trying to send me here, exactly. It was just part of the deal. I owe her for that."

"And we are all," Vaina said wearily, offering her a hand to hold, which she did, clung to it like that would save her, "rather confused, but here we are."

The Seraph sank down in its coils, and covered its eyes with its wings.

"Most Holy," Vaina said, "is anything wrong?"

"I don't believe I can answer that question very well at the moment," said the Seraph, its voice muffled through the feathers. "Please give me a moment."

"Calabite?" The Mercurian stared at the Seraph. "Really, a Calabite?"

The Seraph, Penny, uncovered his eyes. "Yes," he said. "Calabite. I ask that you all to not speak of this with anyone else until I've had time to decide..." And the Seraph sighed, sounding rather like the way Vaina had during some arguments. "...how best to keep the wrong parties from discovering what occurred, and at the hands of whom."

"What occurred," said the Mercurian, "is that Theft lied to us, tricked us, and ran off with a vastly important artifact that we needed."

"What occurred," said Vaina quietly, "is that someone in Theft rescued Luna and pointed her at us, so that we could bring her here and save her from Hell."

"True," said the Seraph. "And true. It is maddening beyond belief at times."

Luna wrapped her fingers between Vaina's, and asked, "What is?"

"That Calabite," said the Seraph.

She could just ask questions. From someone who would tell the truth. She wondered if that meant people wanted the truth, here, when they asked questions of her in turn. But she didn't have any questions to ask, because she didn't even know where to start.

"We should hurry," Vaina said. "I would prefer to have the option to move slowly, but someone may be checking Luna's Heart, once they notice..." He hesitated. "...that their Habbalite has not returned, and I do not know what happened to that Punisher, and I am not sure I want to know, either. But I doubt it was to her benefit."

Luna thought, _Good. And I hope it hurt._ But it seemed prudent not to say that out loud.

"Child of Fire," the Seraph said to her, "do you wish to enter Heaven?"

"I want to not go back home," Luna said. "Never again. And I'm here, and--she said that I'd do fine nearly anywhere. Which means that I want to join up with Heaven, so long as it's not with your type of Fire. Anywhere else. I guess since I came here with Trade, that means that's who owns me? If you'll take me?"

"If you wish to be redeemed, and enter the light of Heaven," said the Seraph, and its voice sounded like what she imagined the voice of God must have been, "you may take up service with any Archangel who will accept you, and we will not hold you from it against your will."

And then it added conversationally, "We may wish to discuss contracts, training periods, and consideration for services rendered. However, such details can wait until after you have entered Heaven. If you already know of a specific Word whose service you would prefer, we can send a request, but it might take longer to receive an answer. And the answer is not always yes."

Luna clutched the Cherub's hand, and looked up to his face. "What about yours?"

And she couldn't understand why everyone was so quiet around her. Except that she had asked a question and it was--wrong. Something she shouldn't have said.

"There has been no Archangel of the Waters for nearly four thousand years," said Vaina. "No one can serve them anymore, because they're--gone. And there is no guarantee, Luna, none at all, that you will live through this if you try to accept redemption. If you want to wait, I will find a way to protect you."

"Thank you," she said. "I really mean it. But. No. I want to try this. I want to get away. I don't want to wait for a better opportunity or a different moment or another time. I want to go now, while I still can, even if it doesn't work, because I want to be _away_ from that. From her and from Fire and from all of Hell. Whatever happens."

She clasped Vaina's hand between both of hers, then let it go. She faced the Seraph directly. Shoulders back, hands at her side, as if she weren't afraid at all. That Lilim or Calabite or whatever she was, Leah said she had guts. That she would do fine almost anywhere.

"Would you tell your Prince--I mean, your Archangel, that I want to try? If he'll take me? Even if I might want to work for someone else afterward."

"I will," said the Seraph.

And now that it was _said_ , Luna could lean against the Cherub, ignore the Mercurian and the Malakim and all the stretch of the Marches behind her, and wonder what it would be like on the other side. If she made it. Who she might serve some day.

Maybe Judgment. She was feeling very judgmental lately.


	39. An Epilogue, In Which I Am Doing Okay

More than likely Ash already knows what my other vessel looks like, because he is a suspiciously well-informed Lilim. But we didn't reach the city until after sunset, which meant I could swap back to the vessel he met me in first. That also means I'm out of Essence again, but if Freedom decides it wants to jump me... 

There are so many things in life that I can't do a damn thing to resist if they come after me. Princes, for one. My partner, for another. Sometimes it's just not worth worrying about. But I convinced Zhune to go look up some other friend of his in the city, and promised I'd meet up with him there by morning. I think he just doesn't want to spend time around Ash. Which works fine for _me_. I don't want my partner here for this conversation either.

Which has been going pretty well. The bottle of wine I brought is open on the coffee table, two wine glasses in front of it, and while this isn't what I usually drink, I thought he'd appreciate it. Which he did, because I went shopping, in the Theft sense, by price tag rather than anything other quality of the bottle.

But that's how I'm here, sprawled across his couch, while he sits on the floor by the coffee table and watches me. _Listens_ to me, while I tell the whole story, except for the parts that make me look stupid or pathetic or reveal things I'd rather not talk about in great detail. Luna does not show up in this story, when I tell it. She's none of anyone's business, not anyone from Hell.

"I wish," he says, when I get to the end, which I explain as _and then we handed it over to our Boss and came back_ and not so much about the rewards or anything else that happened there, "that I could go on adventures like that."

"You wouldn't enjoy most of it," I say, and accept another glass of wine when he pours it for me, because I'm pretty sure I don't actually Need that. "The risk of death, the uncertainty, the stretches of boredom where you're just walking across sand, but that doesn't show up when anyone tells the story because it's boring..."

"Still," he says. He rests his chin on his hands, watching me across the coffee table. "It would be exciting. And I'm glad you came back to tell me about it, or I wouldn't have _known_ , not until someone updated your file and I thought to check it."

"It's a little creepy when you talk about that kind of thing, Ash." I wave away what's looking to be a cheerfully insincere apology. "Never mind. And this story gives you new information for your job?"

"So much, like you wouldn't believe." When he smiles, it's all innocence and adorability, and I'm not even sure how much of that is fake. "Most of the time we'd need to buy information like this. I should almost be paying you." And he tilts his head to one side, hair sliding in front of one eye. "Do you think I should be paying you?"

"Honestly, if you aren't hooking me a half dozen ways during the conversation and before I leave your place, I'll call it even."

"I tell my friends when I hook them," Ash says. "It's only fair." He sits up, elbows on the table, leaning nearer to me. "Are we friends?"

"I don't know. I guess we could be." I roll off the couch, and go to check out the bookshelf he's acquired since I was last in here. The kid's been busy over the last two weeks. His book selection looks like he pulled up the textbook listing for a handful of introductory lit classes and just bought his way down the list. "Have you read any of these?"

"A few of them," Ash says. "Not a whole lot yet. Where do you think I should start?"

What do I know about Ash? Not a lot. It's the third time we've met. And he's a Lilim, which means he's supposed to be working the social angle anyway, playing nice to get in the hooks, and. Sometimes. I am just so tired of not trusting people.

I pick out a collection of Joyce's stories, and hand it to him. "See if you like any of these. Then work your way through Jane Austen. The Brontes vary a lot, so it depends on whether you like melodrama or morality stories better, and none of them have the dry wit Austen does. Then--you didn't get any Edith Wharton, did you? Go look up _House of Mirth_ , it's depressing but excellent. You might want to wander over into Fitzgerald, but I'd try his short stories before you jump straight into his novels, even if they're not long. And..." Okay. Now I feel a little self-conscious. "That's probably enough to start with."

"I'll make a list," Ash says, and he pulls out his phone to do exactly that, tapping out the titles with one finger. Maybe if sensitive electronic devices didn't give up and die after two days of me using them, I could use something like that. "Do you have a number I could call? For if I have questions about these books."

I drink my wine, and try not to think about--no, let's think about this. About possibilities. About the long-term. "Not any sort of permanent one. I have an email address, but I haven't checked it in years, and it might be monitored by Judgment."

"That's no problem," Ash says, like he actually _believes_ that. "Not if we're just talking literature, anyway. All I read in Hell was magazines, and I need to start somewhere if I want to know--the right sorts of things."

"Don't read it because it's the right sort of thing, read it because you like it." I drain my glass, and set it down on the coffee table. "You know, my partner doesn't like you. And if he thinks you're a threat, he will hurt you."

"I know," Ash says. "I figured that out from what he Needed the first time I saw him."

"Which means," I say, carefully and directly, because I'm not anywhere near drunk yet, "that it's probably a bad idea to be my friend."

Ash shrugs, and sits down on the couch. "I can take care of myself," he says.

After I finish reading the titles on his shelves, I sit down beside him. He curls up against me, like it doesn't mean anything except that I'm comfortable and I'm here, and maybe he could mess with my head as much as Zhune could. Or worse. Geases can enforce any sort of thing.

"Did you know," he says, his head against my shoulder, "that we have the same birthday?"

"I didn't." And I look down at this Lilim who's been reading my files. Who came from the Lilim who sent me on that quest for her revenge. "Maybe that's because it was the day Levon was disassembled, and made into me. She must've decided she needed another assistant."

"You shouldn't talk about that," Ash says. "It's not safe." He finishes his glass of wine, and leans forward to set the empty glass beside mine. Then he sits back on the couch, and draws a knee up, resting it in my lap. "Bringing the wine was very sweet. You didn't have to, when I didn't even ask."

"You didn't have to send that message, either," I say, "but it was..." I don't know what word I want. And I say, "Very sweet," which is not at all what I mean, but safer than the truth. Kind. Unexpected. Vital.

"I wanted you to get through that," Ash says, and I find I have my arm around his shoulders. And why the hell not? He's warm and adorable--quite deliberately adorable, which I can't hold against him--and he said that he wouldn't hook friends, and I would like a friend who is...safe.

Zhune is not safe. No one from Heaven is safe. Ash will probably do what he says, and probably not hurt me, and if he calls in debts he'll be fair about it. Probably.

Maybe he'll prove me wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. I've fucked up over and over again, but so what? There's no time in this life for regrets, and nothing to be gained from indulging in them. Forward motion and no looking back.


End file.
